Trump administration violated order by sending immigrants on flight to Africa, U.S. judge says

The Trump administration violated a federal court order against deporting immigrants to countries where they have no ties without giving them a chance to contest their removal, a federal judge in Boston said Wednesday.

Federal officials confirmed that eight immigrants with serious criminal records had been deported Tuesday on a flight to a third country. But they refused to publicly say where the men were being taken. Lawyers said the plane had been headed to strife-torn South Sudan.

U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Massachusetts said that migrants from Myanmar, Vietnam, Cuba, South Sudan and Mexico did not have a “meaningful opportunity to object to transfer” to the African nation, where only one had connections, in defiance of a court order last month. The judge said he would determine later what, if any, the punishment might be for the administration.

The decision came during a hearing to consider an emergency motion filed by attorneys after they learned their clients, two Asian immigrants detained in Texas, along with the others, had been sent to South Sudan, which is engulfed in armed ethnic and political conflict and a refugee crisis that has displaced over 4 million people.

Lawyers for the U.S. government said detainees had enough time to raise fears of harm, if sent to a third country, with immigration officials at the detention center. And the men needed only 24 hours’ notice before being removed.

But Murphy balked at that. The time between when the men were told they would be deported Monday evening to when the plane took off was about 17 hours, the judge surmised — “obviously insufficient.”

He said the actions were “unquestionably violative of this court’s order.”

Murphy issued an order later that evening directing the government to provide the detainees three days notice ahead of an interview where there is a reasonable fear for their safety in a “third country.” He also required officials provide access to lawyers, a telephone, an interpreter and a way to receive documents.

Jacqueline Brown, an attorney representing one of the detainees from Myanmar, said she had no chance to speak with her client before he was removed.

“The reason for notice is to afford due process,” she said. “He was unable to present his fear of being subjected to torture in South Sudan. He didn’t even have an interpreter when he was given the notice.” The removal order was in English, a language he didn’t speak well.

The men were still sitting in a plane on Wednesday morning, Pacific time, according to government officials who briefed the court.

Tom Cartwright, who tracks Immigration and Customs Enforcement flights, posted on X that a plane appearing to be the one carrying the eight deportees had landed in Djibouti, which is about 900 miles from Juba, the capital of South Sudan. Murphy, a Biden appointee, asked the government whether it was feasible to conduct interviews with the men in custody to determine whether they had credible fear claims, as required by the court order.

The administration has been doubling down on efforts to remove immigrants, with little due process, to countries where they have no ties, defying court orders and testing the limits of executive power.

During a news conference Wednesday, Department of Homeland Security officials said South Sudan was not the “final destination” for the eight immigrants removed from the U.S. a day earlier, despite attorneys’ declarations and a “Removal Order” naming the country as the end point. The officials said the immigrants had criminal records, were a public safety threat and would not be accepted by their home countries.

“Because of safety and operational security, we cannot tell you what the final destination for these individuals will be,” said Tricia McLaughlin, assistant public affairs secretary.

On Tuesday, Murphy ordered the Trump administration to maintain custody of the immigrants.

“While the Court leaves the practicalities of compliance to Defendants’ discretion,” Murphy wrote, referring to the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, “the Court expects that class members will be treated humanely.”

McLaughlin said the immigrants remain in Homeland Security custody. She said the agency is following due process laws, adding that the detainees and their lawyers were given “plenty of prior notice.”

According to documents provided to reporters by the Department of Homeland Security, the detainees included one citizen of South Sudan and seven others from the other four countries. They were convicted of crimes including murder, attempted murder, robbery, lascivious acts with a child under 12, and sexual assault involving a victim who was mentally and physically incapable of resisting, according the federal officials.

Though the news conference was titled “DHS Press Conference on Migrant Flight to South Sudan,” McLaughlin said the State Department brokered an agreement with “a nation” willing to accept the detainees.

The officials stressed that the detainees’ countries of origin had refused to take them back.

“As a career law enforcement officer and a career officer with ICE, I’ve been dealing with these recalcitrant countries for years,” said acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons. “Having to see repeated murderers, sex offenders, violent criminals re-released back into the United States because their home countries would not take them back.”

Asked whether South Sudan is considered a safe third country, Lyons deferred to the State Department. The State Department did not immediately respond to an emailed list of questions.

A travel advisory issued by the department warns U.S. travelers not to visit. “Armed conflict between various political and ethnic groups continues throughout the country,” it says, noting that kidnapping, road ambushes, armed robbery, murder and home invasion “are pervasive.”

Earlier this month, a group of immigrants in Texas detention, possibly including some of the same detainees, were told they were being deported to Libya and brought to a plane, before Judge Murphy ordered the government to cancel the flight.

That politically unstable country in North Africa is beset by “terrorism, unexploded landmines, civil unrest, kidnapping, and armed conflict,” according to the State Department. Human rights groups have documented inhumane conditions at detention facilities and migrant camps, including torture, forced labor and rape.

According to lawyers who filed the emergency motion, their clients, one from Myanmar and the other from Vietnam, were given notice on Monday by officers at the Port Isabel Detention Center in Los Fresnos, Texas, that they would be removed to South Africa. The men refused to sign the order, according to court records. The officers quickly rescinded, only to come back with another order saying they would be removed to South Sudan. Again, the men didn’t sign. The next morning, their lawyers and family members couldn’t locate them, according to court documents.

The Myanmarese man, who spoke the regional language of Karen, had final orders to be removed from Nebraska, home to about 8,000 refugees from Myanmar, which is ruled by a military dictatorship. Many of the refugees are from the Karen ethnic minority who escaped the long-running civil war.

His attorney identified him as N.M. in court documents. Federal officials identified one of the Myanmarese detainees as Nyo Myint and said he had been convicted of “first-degree sexual assault involving a victim mentally and physically incapable of resisting.”

The Vietnamese man had signed orders to be deported back to Vietnam, not a third country, according to an email from his spouse to an attorney included in the court file. Federal official identified one of the detainees as Vietnamese: Tuan Thanh Phan, “convicted of first-degree murder and second-degree assault.”

“Please help!” the spouse said in the email. “They cannot be allowed to do this, this is not the first and won’t be the last if they keep getting away with this. I am begging for your assistance.”

“The detention centers are overcrowded with inhumane conditions and ICE is sending people anywhere they can to combat overcrowding. This is not right.”