A federal judge on Friday briefly halted deportations of eight immigrants to war-torn South Sudan, sending the case to another judge, in Boston, the day after the Supreme Court greenlighted their removal.
District Judge Randolph Moss sent the case north from Washington after an extraordinary Fourth of July hearing on Friday afternoon. He concluded that the judge best equipped to deal with the issues was Brian Murphy, the one whose rulings led to the initial halt of the Trump administration’s effort to begin deportations to the eastern African country.
He extended his order halting the deportation until 4:30 p.m. Eastern time, but it was unclear whether Murphy would act on the federal holiday to further limit the removal. Moss said new claims by the immigrants’ lawyers deserved a hearing.
The administration has been trying to deport the immigrants for weeks. None are from South Sudan, which is enmeshed in civil war and where the U.S government advises no one should travel before making their own funeral arrangements. The government flew them to the U.S. Naval Base at Djibouti but couldn’t move them further because Murphy had ruled no immigrant could be sent to a new country without a chance to have a court hearing.
The Supreme Court vacated that decision last month, then Thursday night issued a new order clarifying that that meant the immigrants could be moved to South Sudan. Lawyers for the immigrants, who hail from Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and other countries, filed an emergency request to halt their removal later that night.
The case was assigned to Moss, who briefly barred the administration from moving the immigrants from Djibouti to South Sudan until his afternoon hearing concluded. He slightly extended that bar after he sent the case to Murphy. The administration has said it expected to fly the immigrants to South Sudan sometime Friday.
The temporary stay was first reported by legal journalist Chris Geidner.
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