A Maryland man helped the feds crack down on a drug cartel. Marco Rubio still wanted him deported.

After an immigrant man living in Maryland cooperated with law enforcement officials in their investigation of a drug cartel, an immigration judge ruled he should not be deported to Mexico, finding that he risked likely torture or death if he were sent there.

Yet last month, he was.

Today, he’s hiding out in Mexico and relying on the kindness of strangers, according to his attorneys. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and a top U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official had intervened to send him back to Mexico after two prior attempts to deport him had failed.

U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher earlier this month ordered the man’s return, ruling that the Trump administration’s “extremely rare” intervention did not give the man enough time to challenge the decision.

On Wednesday, after a court hearing on the matter, his attorney says progress is being made for the man’s return from Mexico.

“It’s a clear violation of due process,” attorney Anna Tijerina said. “Why they are going above and beyond, I truly cannot explain that.”

Court papers reveal almost nothing about the immigrant, including his age, his occupation or where he lived in Maryland. Under an international convention against torture, the man was allowed to stay in the state, where he had lived with his wife and children.

On its own, the convention against torture does not give a recipient the opportunity to seek permanent residency or citizenship. But an immigration judge granted the man a reprieve under its terms in July 2024, and he was released to stay in the U.S. under supervision in November of that year.

His special permission to stay in the country, however, was rescinded this summer after the Department of State sought “diplomatic assurances that he would not be tortured if removed to Mexico.” That’s something a presidential administration can use to overrule immigration judges. But to do so, it requires the authorization of a Cabinet member and another high-ranking U.S. government official.

Retired Maryland immigration Judge David Koelsch, who was appointed in President Donald Trump’s first term but now opposes the administration’s policies, said that in his eight years as a judge, he was not aware of any of his cases involving protections from torture being overruled by the State Department.

Koelsch, who is not involved in the case, said using that procedure against someone who helped the government prosecute a cartel “is really beyond the pale.”

After the Trump administration revoked his permission to stay, the man was put on a plane to Mexico the same day. His immigration lawyers said in court papers that they were not informed in time to attempt to intervene.

“Even if the termination had been done correctly, which we don’t concede to, because we don’t know what those diplomatic assurances are, he was deported without an opportunity to challenge that determination,” Tijerina said.

Publicly available documents in the case are limited. But those that are accessible describe the man’s odyssey of multiple transfers while in custody of federal immigration officials and two attempts at his deportation.

In Gallagher’s summary of the case, she wrote that it was determined the man gave “substantial assistance to the Department of Justice” by testifying against defendants affiliated with Mexican drug cartels. Tijerina said the criminal case took place in another state.

That criminal case ended around 2023, and the man had been allowed to stay in the U.S. Then, during a routine check-in with ICE in January of this year, the man was detained. He spent six months in a Louisiana ICE detention facility and then, on July 10, he was deported to Guatemala.

Officials there refused to accept him and turned him over to the Mexican consulate before he was returned back to the U.S. Then, the man was wrongfully deported a second time in mid-July, this time directly to Mexico. Once again, Mexican officials refused to accept him, and he was again returned to the U.S.

Within days of his return, the State Department said it received assurances that he would not be tortured if he were returned yet again. Rubio and Acting ICE Director David Venturella determined that the assurances were reliable, according to the federal judge’s summary of the case.

“No information was provided to explain why these top-level officials personally involved themselves in this case,” Gallagher wrote.

The man was deported again to Mexico on Aug. 1, where his lawyers say he now remains in hiding.

On Aug. 21, Gallagher ruled that she “sees no other option than to order his return” to ”obtain the constitutionally-promised judicial review of the actions” taken to terminate his permission to stay. He’ll remain detained upon his return to the U.S., according to the judge.