NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Immigration authorities did not receive word of a court order of a man living in Alabama until after he had been deported to Laos, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday, dismissing claims that officials violated the order.

Chanthila “Shawn” Souvannarath, 44, was deported on Friday, according to his attorneys, a day after a federal judge in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, told U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to keep him in the country so that he could present what the judge called a “substantial claim of U.S. citizenship."

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