Lawyers for Ahmed Soliman accused the government in an emergency court filing on Friday of misleading a federal judge about a deportation flight to Equatorial Guinea, calling an ICE agent's sworn account 'plainly false', The American Prospect reported on Friday.

Source: The American Prospect via Raw Story / Opera News

According to the Prospect's reporting on the filing, ICE agent Andrea Chiriboga Villacis told the court on Thursday that headquarters had advised her the removal mission was canceled, writing: 'Therefore, that mission is not available as a means to transport Petitioner to the United States.' Flight data cited by the lawyers showed the aircraft landed in Equatorial Guinea the next day. Its stated purpose, the lawyers said, was to expel 25 more third-country nationals there, with no stated plan to bring Soliman back on board.

Soliman's attorneys asked the judge to bar the plane from departing without their client 'because Defendants' attestations were plainly false' and wrote that Soliman 'continues to suffer irreparable harm every day that he remains in Equatorial Guinea', calling the situation 'the very essence of irreparable harm'. The plane departed roughly two and a half hours after landing, before the judge ruled on the emergency request, the Prospect reported. Those claims are the lawyers' allegations in a court filing; they have not been decided by the court.

What is solid

  • U.S. District Judge John C. Hinderaker in Arizona ordered the Department of Homeland Security on October 6 to facilitate the return of Ahmed Soliman, 31, finding his deportation to Equatorial Guinea in April violated the Fifth Amendment's due process protections because he was sent to a country where he has no ties without notice or a chance to object.
  • Earlier in the same week, Judge Hinderaker said he shared the lawyers' concerns about compliance, faulted a government declaration submitted on Monday, and ordered far more detailed status reports — including, from Friday, a declaration each weekday from a person with personal knowledge of the steps being taken.

What is only claimed

  • Soliman's lawyers allege the government's sworn statement that the flight was canceled was 'plainly false' because the flight landed the next day; the government response to that specific allegation was not reported in the coverage reviewed, and the judge had not ruled on it.
  • The government has previously said Soliman is in Equatorial Guinea's custody rather than U.S. custody and that a return order interferes with executive foreign-affairs authority — arguments Judge Hinderaker rejected in his October 6 order.

Soliman was born in Egypt, came to the United States at age 4 and grew up in Phoenix, according to the reporting. An immigration judge had granted him protection from being deported to Egypt, where, as a gay man, he could face persecution. Instead, the government deported him in April to Equatorial Guinea. Judge Hinderaker's October 6 order, as reported by NPR, said it was unrebutted that Soliman had since been held under armed guard, threatened at gunpoint, and arrested, beaten and held incommunicado by Equatorial Guinean authorities.

Source: NPR (Oct 6 order and government facilitation filing)

After that order, the administration said in court filings that it was working 'collaboratively' with Soliman's lawyers and 'beginning the process to facilitate' his return, NPR reported. The daily-report order followed on Wednesday, after the judge cited noncompliance concerns and problems with the declaration submitted on Monday, legal journalist Chris Geidner reported in Law Dork.

Source: Law Dork — Chris Geidner

What happens next will be decided in the Arizona case: whether the court accepts the lawyers' account of the flight, what the government's daily declarations show, and whether a further order sets a deadline or consequences for bringing Soliman back. Awaaz Punjab will update this story when the court or the government files its response.