A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to bring a Colombian woman back to the US from the Democratic Republic of Congo, after she was deported to the African country that had refused to accept her.
The deportation of Adriana María Quiroz Zapata “was likely illegal”, the US district judge Richard Leon ruled on Wednesday.
Quiroz Zapata, 55, who has diabetes and a thyroid condition, “has been sent to a country that refused to accept her because they cannot provide sufficient medical care”, the ruling said. “As a result, she faces a daily risk of medical complications, up to and including death.”
Black spots began to grow on Quiroz Zapata’s back and foot while she was in detention, her skin started to peel and her nails blackened, according to a declaration that Quiroz Zapata submitted in court, and which was provided to the Associated Press by her lawyer.
“She’s not doing well and does worry that she’s going to die,” her lawyer, Lauren O’Neal, said.
Quiroz Zapata entered the US from Mexico in August 2024 and was taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. Since being deported, she has lived in a hotel in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital. The hotel gates are locked, O’Neal said. Quiroz Zapata and other deportees are rarely allowed out, and only with supervision, she said.
Quiroz Zapata was among thousands of immigrants living legally in the US, waiting for rulings on asylum claims, when they were suddenly issued deportation decrees that ordered them expelled to countries where most had no connections.
More than 15,000 third-country deportation orders were issued in the White House push for ever more immigrant expulsions, advocacy groups say, though only a fraction of the orders have been carried out.
Few details are known about the agreements to accept these deportees, though the US has signed them with a range of countries, including Ecuador, Honduras, Uganda, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Advocacy groups estimate only a couple of hundred third-country deportations, at most, have been carried out.
