South Sudan Deportations: US Judge Rebukes Trump

This is not right! I fear my husband and his group… are being sent to South Africa or Sudan against their will. Please help! They cannot be allowed to do this."

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A US judge has criticized the Trump administration on deportations of migrants to South Sudan, saying the action appears to violate a previous court order. US District Court Judge Brian Murphy held a virtual hearing to consider an emergency motion on behalf of deported migrants reportedly on board a flight to South Sudan. “Based on what I have been told, this seems like it may be contempt,” Judge Murphy told Elianis Perez, a lawyer for the Trump Justice Department.

The Trump administration has been seeking destinations to send undocumented immigrants currently detained in the US, particularly those whose home countries will not accept them. However, Judge Murphy ruled that the deportations to South Sudan appeared to violate a preliminary injunction he issued on April 18, which prohibited migrants from being deported to third-party countries that were not their own. The injunction required the Trump administration to give the migrants an adequate opportunity to appeal their removal.

The migrants, Judge Murphy said, were simply seeking “an opportunity to explain why such a deportation will likely result in their persecution, torture, and/or death.” He cited the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees the right to due process. The US Department of State has accused South Sudan of “significant human rights issues,” including torture and extrajudicial killings.

Lawyers for the migrants emphasized how close a call a previous incident was, where their clients were slated to be sent to Libya, another country with significant human rights concerns. The migrants were already on a bus, sitting on the tarmac of an airport, when they were ordered to be returned. In the emergency court filing, the lawyers highlighted the case of one migrant from Myanmar, NM, who received a notice of removal on Monday, identifying the destination as South Africa, only to have it changed to South Sudan a couple of hours later.

The lawyers allege that NM has “limited English proficiency” and was not provided a translator to understand the English-language document. By the time one of NM’s lawyers stated her intention to meet with him, he had already been removed from his detention facility, en route to South Sudan. A family member of those deported sent an email to the lawyers, stating, “I believe my husband [name redacted] and 10 other individuals… were deported to South Africa or Sudan… This is not right! I fear my husband and his group… are being sent to South Africa or Sudan against their will. Please help! They cannot be allowed to do this.”

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