Trump deported a gay man to a country he’d never known. A judge ordered him returned to the U.S.

A federal judge in Arizona has ordered the Trump administration to bring a gay man deported to Central Africa back to the United States.

U.S. District Judge John Hinderaker said the Department of Homeland Security violated Ahmed Soliman’s due process rights by sending him to Equatorial Guinea. Soliman, a native of Egypt who had lived in the U.S. since age 4, had no ties to Equatorial Guinea and has reportedly faced torture and abuse by authorities at the Hotel Bamy in Malabo.

Reports of conditions at the hotel, including allegations of torture and beatings of detainees by armed guards, have drawn coverage from outlets including The Guardian and The New York Times. Hinderaker noted that U.S. officials had not disputed the accounts of Soliman’s treatment.

Related: LGBTQ+ migrants sought safety in the U.S. Trump sent them to dangerous countries they’d never known

“It is unrebutted that he has since been held under armed guard; threatened at gunpoint; and arrested, beaten, and held incommunicado by Equatorial Guinean authorities,” Hinderaker wrote of Soliman’s detention.

Hinderaker ordered DHS to facilitate Soliman’s release and return to the U.S. and handle his case as it would have had he not been improperly deported, according to The American Prospect.

Soliman, a 30-year-old raised in Phoenix, was deported to Equatorial Guinea in April, and his case attracted international attention last month. Reuters published a video of police at the hotel pointing rifles at Soliman as he knelt on the ground while a plainclothes officer shouted, “Shoot him.”

After Soliman spoke to reporters about police abuse at the hotel, authorities seized his phone and arrested him.

Related: U.S. deports gay asylum seeker to country where homosexuality is illegal

“From the information we have, it looks like retaliation. It’s unclear what laws, if any, he’s actually broken,” Kate O’Donnell, a U.S. attorney for Soliman, told The American Prospect. His attorneys said he was being held at an unknown location.

Hinderaker’s order notes Soliman was admitted to the U.S. as the child of religious workers and became a lawful permanent resident. He was arrested on assault and drug charges in 2023, and removal proceedings began in January 2024.

An immigration judge granted Soliman protection against deportation to Egypt last year because he faced torture or persecution there, according to the Arizona Daily Star.