A federal judge in Colorado has ordered the Trump administration to bring back a Honduran immigrant it deported last month to the Central African Republic, ruling that federal officials sidestepped a decade-old order meant to shield him from exactly this kind of danger.

U.S. District Judge Regina Rodriguez directed authorities to return Brayan Omar Sanchez Servellon, who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in May and deported to the Central African Republic in August under the Trump administration's expanding "third-country" removal program, according to court filings reviewed by ABC News.

The judge's order requires Sanchez Servellon to be flown back to Colorado and released "on his own recognizance," free of GPS monitoring, mandatory check-ins or other conditions, Newsweek reported, citing the ruling.

A Protection Order Sidestepped

In 2020, an immigration judge granted Sanchez Servellon protection under the Convention Against Torture, formally barring the government from deporting him to his native Honduras. Rather than releasing him or finding another lawful path, ICE instead sent him roughly 7,000 miles away to the Central African Republic — a country his case never mentioned and where, his attorneys argued, he has no ties, speaks none of the local languages and faces real danger.

THE CIRCUMSTANCES IN THE CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC ARE DANGEROUS, AND HE CANNOT SPEAK THE LANGUAGE.

That argument tracks the State Department's own guidance, which warns Americans against travel to the Central African Republic because of the risk of armed conflict, crime, kidnapping and terrorism. Sanchez Servellon isn't the only migrant caught up in the program — Cuban, Ecuadorian and other Honduran deportees have separately said they were flown to the country with little to no warning.

The Trump administration has struck deportation agreements with a growing list of countries willing to accept migrants regardless of nationality, a strategy that has drawn a wave of legal challenges. Earlier this month, a federal appeals court separately blocked a different attempt to fast-track "third country" removals, finding the process denied migrants adequate notice or any real chance to raise safety concerns before being put on a plane.

What Happens Next

Immigration advocates called Wednesday's ruling a rare, concrete check on a program they say has operated with little transparency and few guardrails. It's unclear how quickly the government will comply or whether it plans to appeal; the Department of Homeland Security has defended third-country removals as a necessary tool when migrants' home countries refuse to take them back.

Attorneys who track the program say more cases like Sanchez Servellon's are likely to surface as deportees and their families locate lawyers and challenge removals after the fact — often, as in this case, from thousands of miles away.

The Central African Republic ranks among the poorest and least stable countries on Earth, with much of its territory outside the control of the central government and armed groups controlling large swaths of the countryside. Immigration lawyers say sending protected migrants there, rather than to a country with any connection to their case, effectively strips away the legal protections a judge already granted — the very outcome the Convention Against Torture is designed to prevent.

Sanchez Servellon's case is expected to be closely watched by advocacy groups tracking the broader third-country removal effort, which has quietly expanded to a growing roster of nations this year even as court challenges mount on multiple fronts.