A federal judge ordered the Department of Homeland Security to maintain “custody and control” of Asian migrants deported to South Sudan in case the court finds their removal to the war-torn country was unlawful.
The order was intended to “ensure the practical feasibility of return,” U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy of Boston wrote on Tuesday night. It left the “practicalities of compliance” up to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s DHS and Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice, but said the court expected the migrants to be treated “humanely.”
The decision comes as President Donald Trump’s administration has claimed it can’t bring back migrants—including the mistakenly deported Maryland dad Kilmar Abrego Garcia—being held in custody in El Salvador on behalf of DHS.
During a recent congressional hearing, Noem claimed she couldn’t even request a wellness check to make sure one of the migrants—a gay makeup artist and asylum seeker named Andry Romero—was still alive, because it was “not under her jurisdiction.”
Andry Romero, a young gay man, was given an asylum appointment by the U.S. Government. When he showed up to the appointment we kidnapped him and sent him to a foreign prison.I asked Secretary Noem to check if he’s alive. Her response was shameful. pic.twitter.com/rQTkgFuNO2
— Congressman Robert Garcia (@RepRobertGarcia) May 14, 2025
On Monday, lawyers for the migrants who were deported to South Sudan alleged in an emergency motion that their clients—one from Vietnam and one from Myanmar—had been deported with less than 24 hours’ notice despite the devastating armed conflict unfolding there.
Fighting broke out just over two years ago between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, leaving more than 150,000 people dead and about 12 million displaced, the BBC reported in March.
Almost half of the country’s population—or 24.6 million people—don’t have enough food, and about 637,000 people are facing outright famine, leading Oxfam officials to declare it the world’s “largest humanitarian crisis,” according to The Guardian.
One of the migrants deported to South Sudan was part of a group the Trump administration had tried to deport to Libya earlier this month, leading Murphy to instruct immigration officials not to deport the migrants to any country where they weren’t citizens—known as a “third country”—without giving them a chance to challenge their removal.
In their filing, lawyers for the migrants sent to South Sudan accused the administration of violating Murphy’s previous order. The migrants had previously been issued orders of removal back to their home countries, not to a third country.
The Daily Beast has reached out to DHS for comment.
The migrant from Myanmar, identified only as N.M., nevertheless received a deportation notice on Monday and had already been deported by Tuesday morning, according to a statement filed by N.M.’s lawyer.
The spouse of T.P.P., the Vietnamese migrant, said in an email submitted to the court that T.P.P. was part of a group of 14 migrants whom ICE planned to send to either South Africa or Sudan “against their will.” Other members of the group were originally from Laos, Thailand, Pakistan, Korea and Mexico.
“The detention centers are overcrowded with inhumane conditions, and ICE is sending people anywhere they can to combat the overcrowding,” the spouse alleged. “Please help! They cannot be allowed to do this.”
Murphy instructed the parties to appear in court on Wednesday for a previously scheduled hearing to discuss the “time and manner of notice” given to each migrant, along with any opportunities they were given to raise a “fear-based claim.”
Individuals facing removal to a country where they have a credible fear of persecution or torture have the right to seek asylum, according to DHS.
The migrants who were deported to South Sudan weren’t given instructions on how they could “seek protection based on fear of deportation to South Sudan, a country currently experiencing civil war and which Defendants themselves have designated for Temporary Protected Status,” their lawyers argued in their emergency motion.
The filing asked that both migrants—who refused to sign their deportation notices to South Sudan—be immediately returned to the U.S.
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