Decisions

D. Ariz. October 29, 2026 Third country: Equatorial Guinea

Disposition Order to enforce the judgment of 6 October 2026. The plaintiff’s requests granted to the extent set out. The defendants’ status report due on 29 October 2026 required to give, for each outstanding step, a completion date and the responsible official, and to state the plaintiff’s location and physical condition and how they were verified, with a declaration from an official with personal knowledge of efforts to coordinate with Equatorial Guinean officials. Hearing set for 2 November 2026, to be vacated if the defendants showed by noon that day that the plaintiff would be aboard the flights of 4 November 2026.

The court acknowledged progress. The plaintiff’s travel had been ticketed: on 27 October a deportation officer, Jose L. Rosiles, entered a tentative reservation for travel on 4 November 2026. The defendants had identified Washington Dulles as the port of entry, subject to issuance of a travel letter, and had identified what transit through Casablanca on Royal Air Maroc required. The Deputy Chief of Mission, Kristen K. Grauer, had advised that the Embassy could issue a travel letter. The court added: “Nearly all of that progress is dated on or after the day of the Court’s October 27 Order.” It found the defendants’ two latest status reports deficient. The later one omitted four of the eleven steps entirely; for most steps neither gave a responsible official or a date; neither identified where the plaintiff was held or described his physical condition; and the supporting declarations of Deportation Officer Andrea Chiriboga Villacis did not say which statements rested on personal knowledge. It noted: “No United States official is reported to have spoken with or seen Plaintiff.” As before, the record reflected no request to Equatorial Guinean authorities for his release or departure: “The Court is especially concerned with the apparent lack of progress and transparency on this point.” The court recorded the plaintiff’s evidence of a government-contracted aircraft, flight VELUX13, scheduled from San Juan to Conakry on 28 and 29 October 2026, made no finding about it, and required a declaration on government aircraft. It also required the defendants to explain what the ticket coding “DEPU” signifies and, if the code designates him as a person being deported or as unescorted, why that coding is appropriate for someone returning to the United States under parole pursuant to the court’s order. It reminded the defendants that it had ordered the plaintiff’s return on 6 October 2026: “Despite that progress, Defendants appear to bristle at their obligation to follow the Court’s explicit orders.” It listed seven matters lying exclusively within their control that remained undone twenty-three days later, and stated: “Defendants have appeared to hesitate to effectuate the relief the Court has ordered.” It set a hearing for 2 November 2026, which defence counsel and the declarant were to attend in person, unless the defendants showed by noon that day that the plaintiff would be aboard Royal Air Maroc Flight 262 from Malabo at 5:45 a.m. on 4 November and the connecting flight from Casablanca to Washington Dulles.

Facilitation of return Enforcement of judgment Civil contempt Parole Travel documents Third-country removal

Caution An enforcement order. The court cited the law of civil contempt but did not hold the defendants in contempt. The judgment of 6 October 2026 and the order of 27 October 2026 are recorded separately in this register. The hearing took place on 2 November 2026. According to its minutes, government counsel said that the plaintiff was scheduled to be on the flight from Malabo to the United States on 4 November 2026, and the plaintiff’s counsel raised concerns about the itinerary and said that two lawyers from the firm would travel to Casablanca to meet him. Later in the hearing the United States Attorney for the District of Arizona, Timothy Courchaine, read into the record an order of the Ninth Circuit staying “this Court’s Order dated October 23, 2026.” The court then adjourned, recording: “The Ninth Circuit having stayed the Court’s dispositive Order, the Court adjourns the hearing without any further orders.” The minutes of the hearing (ECF No. 47) do not say whether the two descriptions refer to the same order, and the Ninth Circuit’s order itself was not read. The documents read end on 2 November 2026 and do not record whether the plaintiff travelled on 4 November. The record gives two dates for the immigration judge’s grant of deferral of removal: 1 October 2025 in the judgment of 6 October 2026, and 2 October 2025 in the government’s Status Update #6, which this order repeats.

D. Ariz. October 27, 2026 Third country: Equatorial Guinea

Disposition Order to enforce the judgment of 6 October 2026. The defendants’ request to file status reports every other business day denied, and daily reports continued. The defendants ordered to report on each of eleven outstanding steps toward the plaintiff’s return, with dates and responsible officials, and on his projected departure, location and physical condition. No order to show cause.

On 6 October 2026 the court ordered the defendants to facilitate the plaintiff’s release from custody in Equatorial Guinea and his return to the United States. It had since twice found their reporting deficient, ordering daily reports and, on 23 October 2026, a report on an aircraft that had landed in Malabo (ECF No. 26). By 26 October the defendants reported one step complete: Significant Public Benefit Parole had been approved, valid from 26 October to 11 November 2026, with Malabo as the issuing post. The court said that the parole authorisation “fixes a deadline”, and refused the defendants’ request to report only every other business day: “With a fixed expiration date approaching and eleven steps still outstanding, the need for daily reporting has increased, not diminished.” The court set out the standards for civil contempt, including that a party asserting inability to comply must show categorically and in detail why it cannot, but did not require the defendants to show cause. It made observations which it said were not findings of contempt, beginning: “The pattern reflected in the record is that each discrete step Defendants have taken has followed, rather than preceded, an order from this Court directing them to address that step.” It observed that the parole request was not submitted until fifteen days after judgment, as a regular request, and that once expedited on 23 October it was approved within three days. It recorded: “A DHS-contracted aircraft landed in Malabo and departed without Plaintiff, for reasons that relate to the delays described above.” On 22 October the defendants had represented that the anticipated third-country removal mission to Equatorial Guinea had been cancelled; the next day aircraft N703KW landed in Malabo and left two hours later. The defendants said he could not board because the parole request had not been adjudicated and the transportation letter had not issued. No United States official was reported to have made contact with the plaintiff, and his physical condition had not been reported, although his counsel had told the defendants that his health was deteriorating, that he had been hospitalised and that he had been injured in a vehicle collision during a transfer by Equatorial Guinean officials. On Equatorial Guinea itself the court wrote: “Nothing in the record reflects any request to the Government of Equatorial Guinea for Plaintiff’s release.” It added: “Without Equatorial Guinean authorization, the parole and travel documents cannot be used.” It listed eleven steps still outstanding, each to be completed in time for travel within the parole period, among them designation of a United States port of entry, contact between a United States official and the plaintiff, Equatorial Guinean authorisation for his release and departure, a medical evaluation, and confirmation that the grant of deferral of removal to Egypt remains in effect and that custody and removal determinations will be made as though the removal of 28 April 2026 had not occurred.

Facilitation of return Enforcement of judgment Civil contempt Parole Travel documents Third-country removal

Caution An enforcement order. The court said its observations “are not findings of contempt,” and it required no showing of cause. The order records that the defendants’ appeal was pending and that no stay had been obtained from the Ninth Circuit. The minutes of a hearing on 2 November 2026 (ECF No. 47) record that government counsel read into the record a Ninth Circuit order staying the district court’s “Order dated October 23, 2026”; see the entries for 6 and 29 October 2026.