Federal court orders return of Colombian woman wrongly deported to Congo

In a court ruling that calls into question the operational mechanisms of recent deportation campaigns, a federal judge on Wednesday ordered the U.S. government to immediately return a Colombian citizen mistakenly sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The ruling represents an unusual legal setback for the Trump administration's efforts to resettle migrants who cannot be repatriated to their countries of origin.

The protagonist in the case, Adriana Maria Quiroz Zapata, 55, was deported in April to the African country. However, court documents shared with the New York Times reveal that the DRC government had formally refused to accept her.

Judge Richard J. Leon, who was responsible for the ruling, was blunt in calling the action, "The government sent it to the DRC anyway." Sending plaintiff to the DRC, therefore, was probably unlawful."

A loophole in border relocation agreements.

Current immigration policy has sought alternatives for those individuals who, by court order, cannot be returned to their home nations due to well-founded risks of persecution or torture.

In the case of Quiroz Zapata, an immigration court determined in 2025 that she could not be sent to Colombia after considering evidence that she would suffer abuse by an ex-partner linked to the national police.

Faced with this limitation, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have resorted to agreements with third countries willing to receive deportees. However, federal law is strict: in order for a deportation to a third country to be valid, that country must formally accept the individual.

Although Congo had agreed to receive certain migrants, the Congolese Interior Ministry sent a letter to ICE rejecting specificallyMrs. Zapata's case.

The reasons were medical: the woman suffers from diabetes, hyperlipidemia and hypothyroidism, conditions that the Congolese health system could not guarantee to take care of adequately. The failure to comply with this prior refusal is what underlies the return order issued by Judge Leon.

Precedents and pressure on the administration.

This is not the first case of a deportation reversed by the courts. Judge Leon cited as precedent the case of Kilmar Armando Ábrego García, a Maryland resident who was wrongly sent to El Salvador last year and whose return was ordered by the federal judiciary.

The court ruling highlights the tension between strict compliance with legal procedures and the pressure faced by federal agencies to execute removal orders.

Currently, Zapata stays in a hotel outside Kinshasa along with 14 other migrants under conditions that she describes as constant fear.

Judge Richard J. Leon, originally nominated by President George W. Bush, has given the administration a deadline this Friday night to report on concrete steps taken to bring Quiroz Zapata back to U.S. soil.

The resolution of the case is pending an official response from the State Departmentand compliance with the court order by the established deadline.