In a recent development, a federal judge has mandated the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a Colombian woman to the United States after she was wrongly deported to Congo, a nation that initially declined her entry.
U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon issued the order on Wednesday, asserting that the deportation of Adriana Maria Quiroz Zapata was “likely illegal.” The 55-year-old woman, who suffers from diabetes and a thyroid disorder, has been placed in a precarious situation due to her deportation to a country unable to meet her medical needs, according to the judge’s statement.
The ruling emphasized that Congo’s inability to provide adequate medical care poses a significant threat to Zapata’s health, putting her at daily risk of severe medical complications, potentially leading to fatal outcomes.
While in detention, Zapata began experiencing alarming symptoms, including black spots appearing on her back and foot, peeling skin, and blackened nails, as detailed in a court declaration she submitted. This document, shared with the Associated Press by her attorney, underscores the gravity of her health predicament.
“She’s not doing well and fears for her life,” stated her lawyer, Lauren O’Neal, expressing Zapata’s anxiety and deteriorating condition.
Zapata entered the U.S. from Mexico in August 2024 and was taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. Since being deported, she has lived in a hotel in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital. The hotel gates are locked, O’Neal said. Zapata and other deportees are rarely allowed out, and only with supervision, she said.
Zapata was among thousands of immigrants living legally in the U.S., 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 U.S. has signed them with a range of countries, including Ecuador, Honduras, Uganda, Cameroon and Congo. Advocacy groups estimate only a couple of hundred third-country deportations, at most, have been carried out.