Another Man Ordered Home by a Federal Judge. The Trump Administration Refuses Again.
“We don’t skip to the end and say, ‘We all know how this is going to end.’ Process is important.”
— U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher
Before the barbed wire and prison guards. Before the courtroom battles. Before his name leaked through a government redaction mistake, he was just Cristian.
That’s how the court referred to him: Cristian. No last name. No family history. Just a pseudonym meant to protect a 20-year-old Venezuelan man from retaliation while lawyers fought to bring him home. A man who should never have been deported in the first place.
His real name, as we now know from leaked court metadata and family testimony, is Daniel Lozano-Camargo and what happened to him isn’t just an immigration story. It’s another in a series of constitutional violations many Americans watch idly. This is what happened to him.
Daniel Lozano-Camargo was 20 years old. He had tattoos, yes. A rose. A pair of praying hands. The names of his grandmother and the little girl he helped raise. He also had something else: a pending asylum case, a valid work permit, and the full protection of a 2024 court settlement that said he could not be deported until his claim was heard.
But the Trump administration sent him to CECOT anyway.
They called him Cristian in court. A pseudonym, to keep him safe. But thanks to metadata left in a redacted ICE document, we now know the truth: Cristian is Daniel. And Daniel is sitting in CECOT, the most violent prison in El Salvador… shaved, shackled, and disappeared.
He Entered at 17. By 20, He Was Gone.
Daniel came to the United States in 2022. He crossed the border alone, at just 17, and was processed as an unaccompanied minor. He did everything he was supposed to. He was placed in a shelter, then released to family. In Houston, he started a car detailing business. He met a woman. He helped raise her daughter. He applied for asylum. He followed every legal process available to him.
Then came two drug charges. both nonviolent, both tied to survival in a new country with no safety net. One in June, for a small amount of cocaine possession. Another in November. He wasn’t selling, and he wasn’t hurting anyone.
He was 19 and trying to cope. Like many young people, especially those who’ve experienced trauma, he made mistakes, but he took responsibility. He accepted a plea deal, served part of a 120-day sentence, and walked out with plans to move forward. That’s when ICE seized him.
Even then, Daniel had rights. Under the November 2024 federal settlement, individuals like him could not be deported until their asylum cases were resolved but on March 15, 2025, the government put him on a plane anyway. The same flight as Kilmar Abrego Garcia and Richard Duarte Rodriguez.
They didn’t send him to Venezuela. They sent him to El Salvador. To CECOT.
A Judge Has Demanded His Return
U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher ruled that Daniel’s deportation was not only illegal, it was a blatant defiance of the court’s authority. The 2024 settlement agreement, which the federal government had willingly entered into and which Gallagher herself approved, clearly barred the deportation of unaccompanied minors with pending asylum cases.
“Standing by and taking no action is not facilitation,” she wrote in her decision. “We don’t skip to the end.”
But the administration didn’t just skip to the end. It actively undermined the court’s order. Rather than begin the lawful process of returning Daniel to the United States, the Justice Department submitted an “indicative ruling” a preemptive denial of his asylum claim, issued outside of any formal hearing or process, as if to excuse their refusal to comply.
Gallagher wasn’t having it. She rejected the move unequivocally and reaffirmed her directive: the government must facilitate Daniel’s return.
That was weeks ago.
Not only has the administration refused to act, they’ve given no evidence that they intend to comply. Gallagher gave them time. She gave them the benefit of the doubt but they have chosen inaction and in doing so, they have chosen to ignore the rule of law.
Daniel’s case is not an isolated defiance. In the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, another man illegally deported to El Salvador despite a standing judicial order barring his removal, the administration has similarly refused to act.
Even after the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling that his deportation was unlawful, the government has dragged its feet, delayed proceedings, and ignored deadlines. Judge Paula Xinis, who oversees that case, has been forced to demand sworn testimony from officials just to determine what, if anything, has been done.
This isn’t negligence. It’s a pattern. One federal judge after another has issued legally binding orders. And one after another, this administration has either ignored them or tried to work around them. This isn’t just defiance of a single judge.. it’s a constitutional crisis playing out in silence.
Daniel is still in CECOT. Still waiting. So is Richard. Kilmar is still in another prison.. and so are hundreds of other innocent men.
If you made it this far, thank you. This series is part of an ongoing investigation into the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport asylum seekers to El Salvador. All posts are free. All voices are needed.
The most important pattern is that these courts are telling the executive branch to facilitate return, not immediatelyq return. They are giving deference to the Constitutional authority of the Executive branch with regard to immigration. Moreover, the Legislative branch has criminalized civil law, ie immigration, by requiring penalties for actions - or inactions - by immigrants and at the discretion of the Executive. All the protesting senators and reps have the power to change our laws and create new guardrails for Executive action, pending Judicial review of course. I haven't seen that happen and it should. Clearly our immigration program is fraught with inconsistencies and unintended consequences.
Hit the streets June 14th! Sign the National Strike pledge! Don't know how, but we need a national tax strike as well, show who really controls the power of the purse, we the people!!!