The Trump Administration vowed to send migrants to “third countries” in response to a lawsuit filed on the migrant “deportation” case
The Trump administration decided to send migrants to countries that aren’t their own after a legal challenge. It wanted to take away people from third country destinations who can’t be sent back to their home countries.
They also urged federal Judge Brian Murphy to immediately order the return of any migrants who may have already been deported to these “third countries,” or places they’re not from originally, according to a court filing on Tuesday.
Migrants from Myanmar, Vietnam and other countries who do not have legal status to remain in the U.S. received notices on Monday that they would be deported, their lawyers said.
The attorneys representing the people in the Texas Port Isabel Detention Center said that one person originally from Myanmar had already been removed to South Sudan.
They argued that the Trump administration’s deportations of their clients also violates the judicial order that bars deportation to third countries without adequate due process.
The Department of Homeland Security has already deported more than 200 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador. The Alien Enemies Act, an obscure wartime law that allows for quick removal of criminals, was argued to be the reason why some men were members of the Tren de Aragua gang. The $6 million the Trump administration paid to house them was also paid by the Trump administration.
Earlier in May, the administration had sought to send migrants to Libya, despite concerns from human rights groups about the violence there and the country’s notorious human rights record.
The final destination for the eight men on a flight to South Sudan has been violated by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
South Sudan endured a long civil war that killed more than 50,000 people until a fragile peace halted the fighting in 2018. Conflicts between the government and rebels are still going on. The UN is concerned about the likelihood of civil war in the country.
McLaughlin told reporters that it was possible South Sudan was not the final destination for the eight men on the flight. The State Department doubled down on the fact that they are following court orders after the department referred to questions about third-country negotiations.
“The department’s actions in this case are unquestionably violative of this court’s order. Murphy said that the question of whether the violation implicates criminal obstruction may be solved for another day. “Based on what I have learned, I don’t see how anybody could say that these individuals had a meaningful opportunity to object.”
At least seven men remained aboard the plane somewhere abroad, as the court hearing in Boston proceeded on Wednesday, with the federal judge grappling with their fate.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Todd Lyons told reporters earlier on Wednesday that the people on the flight out of the U.S. had been convicted of crimes in the United States and that ICE was not able to return them to their home countries.
“We found a nation who was willing to take custody of these vicious illegal aliens,” said Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, about the Asian men on the flight. “Now, a local judge in Massachusetts is trying to force the United States to bring back these uniquely barbaric monsters who present a clear and present threat to the safety of the American people and American victims.”
The immigration lawyers filed an emergency motion on Tuesday that claimed their client was not given enough notice before being put on the plane for South Sudan.
Jonathan Ryan, a lawyer with the legal nonprofit Advokato, told NPR that what is striking is the complete lack of information the group is working with. Ryan does not know the full name of his client or his criminal history, but he knows whom he is: “N.M.”
They spoke briefly on May 16, but N.M. does not speak English. Ryan began looking for an interpreter, but by the next day, was informed his client had been moved to another facility, further away. In a second phone call, despite background noise and his client’s broken English, he was able to discern that his client had been given paperwork, which he’d refused to sign.
Ryan was confused when he received an email from ICE that said his client was going to South Africa. He got another notification from ICE that his client was going to South Sudan.
N.M was sent to two other countries first, even after being notified that he was to go to Burma, according to government officials at a late Tuesday hearing.
I would like to speak with my client. I want him to tell me that he is in Burma,” Ryan said. “Because I don’t know. As far as I’m concerned, he’s sitting in South Sudan with a guard potentially of the United States, potentially of South Sudan, hovering over him, telling him to tell me that he is in Burma. We don’t know what’s happening.
Government lawyers at Wednesday’s court hearing said people sent on the flight could have expressed fear of being sent to another country before they were loaded on the plane, but didn’t.
Elianis Perez is an immigration lawyer at the Justice Department. “But I think any misunderstanding may have had to do with the fact that the court’s preliminary injunction wasn’t specific enough.”
The government “believe they complied with my order because they don’t know of any of these people yelling to any of their jailers that they were afraid to go to South Sudan. Murphy said that it was insufficient during the hearing.
He said he would clarify his initial preliminary injunction to define how much notice is enough, adding that 24 hours’ notice before removal is “plainly insufficient”; the men in this case only got 17 hours of notice, he said. The Justice Department said that 24 hours is enough notice.
Murphy had ordered the Department of Homeland Security to keep the migrants in custody until they are sure they have received a proper due process.
Lawyers for the men asked that they be brought back to the U.S., but Drew Ensign, a Department of Justice attorney, asked that DHS officials be allowed to interview them about their fear of persecution of being sent to another country while they remain in U.S. custody abroad.
The State Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about where a recent plane full of migrants was sent, and what their ultimate destination was.
The spokesman denied any arrival of flights of deportees from the U.S. by Wednesday evening local time. He said any non-South Sudanese migrants arriving in the country would be re-deported to their correct country of origin.
South Sudan is not the first country to voice an opposition to being a so-called third country. Earlier this month, Libyan officials also rejected reports that they would take in deportees from the U.S. if they were not Libyan nationals.
Mexico and El Salvadoran have been considered third country destinations for people who can’t be deported to their home countries.
Source: Judge says Trump administration violated court order on third-country deportations
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