A Charlotte immigration judge signed a deportation order for a young Honduran man nearly two years after he was gunned down in a November 2024 shooting, brushing aside evidence of his death and proceeding with a routine removal hearing as if nothing had changed.
Judge Amy Lee ordered the removal of Levi Mendez-Maldonado on May 21, after his attorney informed the court of his death. Mendez-Maldonado arrived in the United States as an unaccompanied minor at 17 and was working as a mechanic and father when he was murdered.
His attorney, Becca O'Neill with the Carolina Migrant Network, showed up to defend his case and handed the judge police records documenting the killing. Lee rejected the evidence as insufficient, even though a death certificate had been filed months earlier. The hearing continued for roughly five minutes, with the judge and prosecutor treating the matter as a standard no-show case.
"The judge didn't take a moment to reorient herself after hearing he was dead," O'Neill said.
The final order made no mention of Mendez-Maldonado's death. It simply stated that he "failed to appear at the hearing" and cited "no exceptional circumstances" for his absence. The boilerplate language stripped away any acknowledgment that the respondent was no longer alive.
O'Neill, stunned by the outcome, did not challenge the ruling.
"This is the banality of evil," she said. "All of this is so normalized and bizarre. He didn't come to court, he didn't demonstrate good cause. Well, he's dead. And you know that because you saw a government website saying that he's dead."
Stefania Arteaga, founder of the Carolina Migrant Network, said the case reveals a systemic problem: "It shows that even after death, you can't escape deportation."
Mendez-Maldonado had followed proper procedures. He was sponsored by his older brother upon arrival and applied for asylum in Texas after turning 18, represented by counsel. When he moved to North Carolina, O'Neill took over his case. His asylum application was still pending at his death, and she had been preparing to appear on his behalf in Charlotte immigration court for his initial hearing.
In fact, O'Neill had good news waiting. She had been trying to reach him for months in 2025 to tell him that his work permit had been approved. A colleague eventually informed her that Mendez-Maldonado had been killed in a shooting.
This is not an isolated incident. Both O'Neill and Arteaga said they have never seen a deportation order issued for a deceased immigrant in over 20 years working in North Carolina, but similar cases have surfaced elsewhere. In 2024, an 88-year-old man who had been dead for three years faced deportation proceedings in California. The Department of Homeland Security sent multiple notices to the residence. Immigration lawyers have confirmed at least three additional cases with comparable outcomes.
Paul Hunker, a former ICE chief counsel for Texas who is now an immigration attorney, said federal regulation 239.2 allows judges to cancel notices to appear for several reasons, including death. Lee had the authority to stop the proceedings.
"The judge could have delayed her decision," Hunker said. He added that the current administration is pressuring ICE attorneys to deny relief and that cases are rarely reopened or dismissed anymore, even when circumstances warrant it.
The Charlotte immigration court granted relief in roughly 1% of cases in 2025. Lee denied asylum in nearly 90% of her roughly 550 cases over the past five years. The court has a backlog of about 129,000 pending cases, the ninth-largest in the nation.
O'Neill described Lee as uncompromising. Earlier this year, the judge ordered one of her clients removed to Ecuador, Guatemala, or Honduras, despite the fact that he was Mexican and had never been to any of those countries. When O'Neill filed a motion to reconsider, Lee told her to "stop talking" and refused to budge.
"She does not indulge any differing feedback," O'Neill said.
The case underscores the vulnerability of young immigrants navigating the system. Mendez-Maldonado was rare in having free legal representation. Most unaccompanied minors do not. Children as young as four have received removal orders because they failed to appear in court, even though sponsors, often undocumented themselves, bear the responsibility of ensuring attendance.
"I've had clients who enter as unaccompanied minors as young as four years old who end up with removal orders," O'Neill said. "How is a four-year-old going to know when their hearing date is?"
The homicide unit of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department confirmed that the investigation into Mendez-Maldonado's death remains open, though no further details were disclosed.
Author James Rodriguez: "A judge ordering the deportation of a dead teenager is not bureaucratic error, it's the system working exactly as designed to push immigrants out of the country regardless of circumstance."
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