On Dec. 19, federal agents arrested in Orem an immigrant from Mexico who had no apparent criminal convictions in Utah and had been living in the United States for more than two decades.
Four days later, Federico Reyes Vasquez was deported to Mexico.
Now, a federal judge in Utah has ordered the Trump administration to return the 50-year-old father to the U.S., saying it violated an earlier court order barring his deportation.
Utah Chief District Judge Jill Parrish ruled Wednesday that the federal government needed to facilitate his return while a wrongful-detention lawsuit he filed plays out here.
“Law enforcement of any agency should comply with the federal court’s orders,” Reyes Vasquez’s Utah-based attorney, Alec Bracken, said Friday. “... The federal government violated the law and kept loved ones from knowing where their father was.”
Reyes Vasquez, who his attorney said lacks legal immigration status, and his son Esggar Reyes also filed a second lawsuit against the Trump administration, alleging that the Salt Lake City office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had disconnected a phone line meant to provide updates on detainees’ locations, violating their constitutional rights under the Fourth and Fifth amendments.
In an order directing ICE to inform Reyes Vasquez’s family of his whereabouts, senior Utah District Judge Tena Campbell wrote he had “effectively disappeared.”
Bracken said Reyes Vasquez, who had lived in the U.S. for 21 years, has at least three children who are U.S. citizens.
ICE did not reply Friday to multiple questions from The Salt Lake Tribune about Reyes Vasquez’s case.
The federal government significantly stepped up immigration enforcement in the Beehive State in 2025, arresting more than 3,000 people (as of Oct. 15) and deporting 975 (as of July 28). While President Donald Trump was campaigning for a second term, he promised to enforce the nation’s immigration laws more aggressively and remove criminals from the country.
A Tribune search of Utah and federal court records found that Reyes Vasquez had no criminal convictions. He had picked up a speeding ticket in Lehi in 2001. Juvenile court records were unavailable Friday, though Bracken said he was unaware of any juvenile cases against his client.
After Reyes Vasquez was arrested in Orem, Bracken filed the wrongful-detention lawsuit as a way to locate him and on the grounds that he had been residing in the U.S. for years and, therefore, shouldn’t be subject to mandatory detention.
Now, Bracken said, new information has emerged and the complaint was amended but that he could not share that information with The Tribune.
The day before the federal government deported Reyes Vasquez, Parrish, the chief judge, prohibited officials from removing him while the wrongful-detention suit proceeded.
In her Wednesday decision, Parrish wrote that ICE committed a “direct violation” of her earlier order. Government lawyers, the judge said, acknowledged Reyes Vasquez’s deportation was illegal.
Parrish has not determined whether Reyes Vasquez had been wrongfully held.
As of Friday, Reyes Vasquez remained in Mexico, according to his attorney. Parrish directed federal officials to provide Reyes Vasquez with transportation to a port of entry or give him financial support to do so.
Bracken said the U.S. attorney’s office was working with him to bring Reyes Vasquez back.
As for the future, Reyes Vasquez’s two lawsuits against the federal government are ongoing. Bracken said he will also try to secure legal immigration status for Reyes Vasquez.