The Trump administration said it deported a group of eight men convicted of serious crimes in the United States to the conflict-ridden African country of South Sudan, following a legal saga that had kept the deportees stuck in a military base in Djibouti for weeks.
Assistant Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the deportation flight carrying the deportees landed in South Sudan just before midnight Eastern time on Friday. A photo provided by the department showed the deportees, with their hands and feet shackled, sitting inside an aircraft, guarded by U.S. service members.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
The deportations to South Sudan — a country plagued by armed conflict and political instability that the U.S. government warns Americans not to visit — mark an unprecedented new frontier in President Trump’s government-wide crackdown on illegal immigration.
None of the deportees is from South Sudan. They hail from Cuba, Mexico, Laos, Myanmar, Sudan and Vietnam, and were ordered deported from the U.S. after being convicted of crimes, including murder, homicide, sexual assault, lascivious acts with a child and robbery.
The high-profile legal battle over the fate of the men culminated when two federal judges on Friday denied a last-ditch attempt by immigration rights advocates to halt the deportations, saying their hands were tied by recent orders from the U.S. Supreme Court.
The deportations signify a major political victory for the Trump administration, which has sought to convince countries around the world — irrespective of their human rights record — to accept deportees who are not their citizens, including those convicted of serious crimes.
“A district judge cannot dictate the national security and foreign policy of the United States of America,” said McLaughlin, the DHS spokeswoman. “This Independence Day marks another victory for the safety and security of the American people.”
The deportations have also alarmed human rights advocates, who fear the men could face jail time, torture or other harms in South Sudan. They’ve argued the deportations to South Sudan are designed to punish the men for their crimes, even though they have already served criminal sentences in the U.S.
“The U.S. State Department warns Americans against all travel to South Sudan, yet deported these men there without any due process,” said Trina Realmuto, an attorney for the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, which tried to halt the deportations. “Make no mistake about it, these deportations were punitive and unconstitutional.”
It’s unclear exactly how the deportees will be treated in South Sudan. A Justice Department attorney told a federal judge Friday that South Sudan informed the U.S. it would offer the men a temporary immigration status, but the lawyer could not confirm whether they would be detained. The Trump administration has said in court filings that South Sudanese officials have made assurances that the deportees will not face torture.
The men’s deportation was made possible by a Supreme Court order earlier this week. At the request of the Trump administration, the Supreme Court on Thursday clarified the scope of an earlier order it had issued to pause a lower court ruling barring deportations to third-party countries without a degree of due process and notice.
That April lower court ruling by U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Massachusetts had required the Trump administration to give detainees sufficient notice and a chance to be interviewed by a U.S. asylum officer before any deportation to a country where they did not hail from. That case thwarted several deportation efforts, including a plan to send detainees to Libya.
When he learned of the administration’s plan to deport the eight men to South Sudan in May, Murphy blocked that effort, mandating the U.S. to retain custody of the detainees and to offer them a chance to contest their deportation. The administration transferred the detainees to the Camp Lemonnier naval base in Djibouti, where U.S. officials described dangerous conditions, including concerns about malaria, rocket attacks, inadequate security protocols and triple-digit outdoor temperatures.
But the Supreme Court last month suspended Murphy’s ruling from April. And on Thursday, it said Murphy could no longer require the government to allow the detainees in Djibouti to contest their deportation, since the order underpinning that requirement had been paused.
Hours later, immigrant rights advocates asked a different federal judge, Randolph Moss in Washington, D.C., to halt the deportations to South Sudan. He did so on Friday, but only briefly before saying the request should be handled by Murphy.
Moss expressed concern about risks to the men’s “physical safety” and said the U.S. government should not be in the business of inflicting “pain and suffering” on people who have already served their sentence, even for a “terrible crime.” But he said his hands were tied, telling the advocates they needed to ask Murphy for any intervention.
Later on Friday, Murphy denied the advocates’ request, saying the Supreme Court orders were “binding.”
