An immigration judge in Charlotte on Thursday ordered the removal of a Honduran asylum seeker who was killed in southwest Charlotte in November 2024, issuing a deportation order that treats the slain teenager as if he had simply skipped court. The written order notes that the respondent failed to appear, even though his attorney had already told the court he was dead.
According to WUNC, the case centers on 19-year-old Levi Mendez‑Maldonado, who came to the United States from Honduras in 2023 seeking asylum. At a scheduled hearing, his attorney, Becca O’Neill of the Carolina Migrant Network, informed the immigration judge and Department of Homeland Security prosecutors that Mendez‑Maldonado had been killed, and she provided them with a Charlotte‑Mecklenburg Police Department press release that identified him.
Charlotte‑Mecklenburg Police say Mendez‑Maldonado was found with a gunshot wound on the 4100 block of Revolution Park Drive and was pronounced dead at the scene in late November 2024, according to that press release. Homicide detectives are still investigating his killing.
Judge’s Order Treats Death As A No-Show
A copy of the immigration judge’s written order, provided to reporters, states that Mendez‑Maldonado “failed to appear” and orders him removed to Honduras. The order also says that any pending protections from removal were “abandoned.” O’Neill told reporters that Department of Homeland Security prosecutors would not agree to dismiss the case without an official death certificate, a requirement she said prevented the case from being closed on the spot. WUNC reported on the order and O’Neill’s account of what happened in court.
Charlotte Immigration Court’s Removal Rate Surges
The case lands in a court that is already leaning hard toward removal. Reporting based on Executive Office for Immigration Review data shows that judges in Charlotte ordered about 7,003 removals between January and April, which made up nearly 86 percent of completed cases in that span, WFAE found. Even with that pace, the court is still carrying a backlog of roughly 129,000 cases.
How In‑Absentia Orders Box Courts In
Under federal law, immigration judges are required to issue an in‑absentia removal order when someone misses a hearing after receiving proper written notice, and those orders can be undone only in specific situations. The Supreme Court’s decision in Cornell Law School and a related Board of Immigration Appeals ruling spell out when courts may reopen such cases, emphasizing that rescission is allowed only for narrow problems with notice or for exceptional circumstances. Those limits help explain why, on paper, the judge treated the missed appearance as the key fact that controlled the outcome.
O’Neill said she plans to file additional paperwork to clear the record for her client, and she added that advocates worry the case shows how rigid procedural rules can clash with life-and-death realities for asylum seekers and their families. For now, the removal order remains in place while the legal steps to dismiss or reopen the case are sorted out.
