A federal judge in Maryland has delivered a blistering rebuke to the Trump administration, accusing officials of effectively ignoring court orders in a deportation fiasco that has left a Venezuelan asylum seeker missing and possibly in danger.
In a 15 page order, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher laid out how the government mishandled the case of Venezuelan national Daniel Lozano Camargo, referred to in court papers as “Cristian.” He had a pending asylum claim in the United States, yet was still removed from the country, bounced through a third nation, and ultimately sent back to the place he said he fled out of fear for his life.
Gallagher said she has “grave concerns” about the government’s behavior, warning that the administration’s apparent refusal to follow court directives in the case raised serious questions about its respect for the rule of law. Her order reads less like a dry legal document and more like a point by point indictment of how federal agencies treated both the courts and the man at the center of the case.
Cristian’s situation is as convoluted as it is disturbing. Despite his pending asylum claim, he was deported from the United States to El Salvador, a country to which he has no apparent legal or personal ties. According to the judge’s order, he then became part of a prisoner exchange arranged by U.S. authorities and was transported on to Venezuela, the very country from which he had sought protection.
The result is a grim legal and human mess and as of now, Cristian is missing.
While everyone is talking about Abrego Garcia, no one is talking about this 20-year-old Venezuelan man, Daniel Lozano-Camargo, who was also illegally deported by the Trump administration to CECOT prison in El Salvador.
Daniel was living in America legally. He came to America as… pic.twitter.com/qfXsCD8VdW
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) July 12, 2025
Gallagher did not attempt to soften the implications and while she acknowledged the possibility that he might have chosen to disappear on his own, she described out a far more chilling alternative. It is, she wrote, “equally possible that Cristian has been the victim of the anticipated violence that caused him to seek asylum in the United States in the first instance.”
A man who turned to the U.S. legal system for protection may have been sent straight back into the danger he described, despite a judge’s orders intended to keep him safe while his claim was heard.
The order faults the government for moving ahead with removal even as court proceedings were ongoing, and for failing to provide clear, timely information about Cristian’s status and whereabouts. At several points, the judge suggests that the administration’s conduct went well beyond bureaucratic confusion and went into open defiance.
For the Trump administration, the ruling comes at a crucial point in immigration policy, executive power, and following court orders. The White House has spent years describing its tough approach to asylum and deportations as a needed response to chaos at the border. In Gallagher’s courtroom, that narrative shifts. Here, the government is shown as the one stepping beyond legal limits.
Immigrant rights advocates are likely to seize on the opinion as fresh proof that aggressive enforcement tactics are colliding with fundamental legal protections. For judges, it is a reminder that their orders are only as strong as the government’s willingness to honor them.
