By Nate Raymond and Ted Hesson
BOSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) –President Donald Trump‘s attempt to transfer immigrants to South Sudan was “unquestionably violative” of a judicial order not to deport migrants to countries other than their own without opportunity to contest their deportations, a U.S. judge said on Wednesday.
Boston-based U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy made the finding during a hearing one day after he ordered the administration not to let a group of migrants being flown to South Sudan to leave the custody of U.S. immigration authorities. The judge said the migrants appeared to have been deported in violation of his previous order.
At the outset of the hearing, Justice Department lawyer Elainis Perez confirmed that the plane carrying the deportees had landed but did not say where, citing “very serious operational and safety concerns.” Perez also disputed Murphy’s finding that the migrants were not given the chance to challenge their deportations.
Murphy said he would leave the question of any criminal penalties for Department of Homeland Security officials who violated his order to another day.
Earlier on Wednesday, Homeland Security officials said at a press conference that the eight men being deported are from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and South Sudan, and were convicted of murder, armed robbery and other serious crimes.
“We conducted a deportation flight from Texas to remove some of the most barbaric, violent individuals illegally in the United States,” Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told reporters before the start of the hearing. “These are the monsters that the district judge is trying to protect.”
While McLaughlin did not confirm South Sudan as the intended destination, a department advisory for the press conference was titled “DHS Press Conference on Migrant Flight to South Sudan.”
Conditions in South Sudan have long been dangerous even for locals. The United Nations has warned that the country’s spiraling political crisis could reignite the brutal civil war that ended in 2018.
Perez said the plane was carrying seven individuals convicted of serious crimes. It was not clear why Perez referenced seven deportees instead of eight. One of the men on the flight was a South Sudan national, according to DHS, and would not be blocked from removal to South Sudan under the court order.
Trump took office in January pledging to deport millions of immigrants who are in the United States illegally. His administration has sought to send harder-to-deport migrants to “third countries” that are not their home country.
The effort prompted a legal challenge by immigrant advocates who said the affected migrants were not being given an opportunity to raise claims that they might be persecuted, tortured or killed if they are deported to countries not previously identified in their immigration proceedings.
Murphy, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, issued a preliminary injunction on April 18 designed to ensure that any migrants being sent a third country were provided due process under the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment and a “meaningful opportunity” to raise any fears for their safety.
The judge held an emergency hearing on Tuesday after advocates said it appeared a group of migrants was being deported to South Sudan in violation of his order. At the hearing, Murphy ordered DHS to keep the migrants in federal custody.
McLaughlin on Wednesday declined to identify where the migrants were being held, saying it could jeopardize operational security. McLaughlin said the administration was acting lawfully and had given “plenty of prior notice” to the migrants and their attorneys about their deportation.
“It is absolutely absurd for a district judge to try to dictate the foreign policy and national security of the United States,” McLaughlin said.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston and Ted Hesson in Washington; Additional reporting by Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Writing by Luc Cohen; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Will Dunham)
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