On September 25, 2026, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher of Maryland, a Trump appointee, held the administration in contempt for deporting a young asylum seeker, identified in court papers as E.L.A., to El Salvador. Her order: “Defendants are hereby found to be in contempt of this Court's November 25, 2024, April 23, 2025, and July 29, 2026, orders as a result of their removal of E.L.A. to El Salvador in violation of this Court's orders.” Axios reported it is the second time she has found the administration in contempt in the same class action.
The case, J.O.P. v. Department of Homeland Security, dates to 2019 and protects the asylum rights of people who arrived in the United States as unaccompanied children; under its settlement, class members are not to be deported before their asylum claims are decided. According to class counsel's filing, E.L.A. was removed in March 2026, flew back on his own on August 7 and surrendered to immigration custody, and was removed again on September 1. “Two times in the last six months, Defendants have placed Class Member ELA on a plane to El Salvador, the country in which he fears persecution,” his lawyers wrote, and the second time left him “stranded there with no belongings, money, or even his phone, wearing a detention jumpsuit and no change of clothes.”
Gallagher ordered the government to return E.L.A. and to “refrain from executing any final removal order against him” until immigration authorities decide one properly filed asylum application or the settlement expires, to give three days' notice of his arrival, to return his property and documents, and to give five business days' notice before any future attempt to remove him. She denied other relief his lawyers sought, and her full opinion is under seal pending redactions. In its filing the government said it stood ready to facilitate his return but argued his asylum application can be closed because he missed biometrics appointments in 2025. The parties must report by October 2 on whether he chooses to come back.
He is not an isolated case. ABC News reported that, according to court documents, “at least 107 people protected by the settlement -- 54 confirmed class members and 53 more the government flagged as potentially protected -- were removed under final deportation orders before their asylum claims were decided.”