By Nate Raymond
BOSTON, March 25 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has informed a federal court that it deported about 6,000 Cubans to Mexico under an "unwritten" agreement by Mexico to accept them, prompting a judge to demand details and question whether the deal was secret.
U.S. District Judge William Young in Boston laid out his concerns in an order on Wednesday in the case of a Cuban man who was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in February after more than three decades of living in the United States.
Lawyers for Jorge Juan Navarro have argued that ICE violated its procedures and his due process rights by detaining him while knowing authorities could not promptly deport him to Cuba, which has often refused to take back its citizens.
The Trump administration since January has been enforcing a de facto oil blockade in a bid to starve Cuba of fuel and pressure its government for change, which potentially could lead to measures that allowing Cubans living in the United States to return to their home country
Young put the case on hold pending the outcome of the administration's appeal of another judge's ruling declaring unlawful its policy of rapidly deporting migrants to countries other than where they came from.
But the judge said in the interim the administration should supply him with evidence of an agreement it says it has with Mexico to accept deported Cubans, saying a government lawyer offered in a hearing to provide him a copy but later told him it was a "standing (unwritten) agreement."
"What?" Young wrote in Wednesday's order. "Can this be true? There's some unwritten deal between the sovereign nations whereby 6,000 Cuban nationals have already been shipped to Mexico? Is this deal secret?"
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not respond to a request for comment.
Young said the administration at times pointed to an agreement Mexico reached in 2023 to accept expulsions of non-citizens from four nations including Cuba contingent on President Joe Biden's administration establishing a humanitarian parole process for those migrants.
But Young, who was appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan, noted the Trump administration terminated that parole program. He said it was essentially arguing, "We're already doing this on a grand scale so it must be okay."
"At some point, judicial restraint and deference to the executive's statutory duties become abdication of my duty to exercise the judicial function," Young wrote.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
