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A federal judge on Friday halted the Trump administration’s efforts to deport eight migrants to South Sudan, the latest case testing the legality of the Trump administration’s push to ship illegal immigrants to third countries.
U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington made the ruling, on the July 4 holiday, in order to give the migrants time to make an argument to a Massachusetts court.
The eight men, who are from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Burma, Sudan and Vietnam, argue their deportations to South Sudan would violate the Constitution, which prohibits “cruel and unusual” punishment, Reuters reported. They have been convicted of various crimes, with four of them convicted of murder, the Department of Homeland Security has said.
They were detained for six weeks on a military base in Djibouti instead of being brought back to the United States.
On Thursday, the migrants filed new claims after the Supreme Court said that a federal judge in Boston could no longer require the Department of Homeland Security to hold them, Reuters reported.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House.
Friday’s order stops the U.S. government from moving the men until 4:30 p.m. ET. They were scheduled to be removed to South Sudan on a 7 p.m. flight.
During Friday’s hearing, a government lawyer argued that court orders halting agreed-upon deportations pose a serious problem for U.S. diplomatic relations and would make foreign countries less likely to accept transfers of migrants in the future.
The case is the latest development over the legality of the Trump administration’s campaign to deter immigration by shipping migrants to locations other than their countries of origin pursuant to deals with other countries, according to Reuters.
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“It seems to me almost self-evident that the United States government cannot take human beings and send them to circumstances in which their physical well-being is at risk simply either to punish them or send a signal to others,” Moss said during the hearing.
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