The Trump administration will be able to send eight migrants held in Djibouti for weeks to South Sudan, where they fear they will face violence, after a flurry of court activity on Friday.
A federal judge in Massachusetts denied an emergency request Friday evening from the migrants’ lawyers to block their deportation to the country, where they said their clients could face torture.
In a brief order, United States District Judge Brian E. Murphy wrote that he interpreted a Supreme Court decision delivered a day earlier allowing the deportation to South Sudan to move forward as “binding” on the request, which he said raised “substantially similar claims.” The nation’s highest court on Thursday had ruled in the Trump administration’s favor and cleared the way to remove the eight migrants to South Sudan.
Earlier Friday, the migrants were handed a brief reprieve from a federal judge in DC that kept the migrants on the ground in Djibouti, while their lawyers transferred their case to Massachusetts federal court, where earlier procedures around the group had been held. Now that Murphy has denied the emergency petition, the flight from Djibouti to South Sudan could take off around 7 p.m. ET.
“Today, law and order prevails,” Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said on X following the decision. CNN has reached out to DHS to confirm the status of the flight.
The detainees’ lawyers had argued they will face torture if they are sent to South Sudan by the US, and say they will be deprived of their constitutional rights. They said the Trump administration is trying to unfairly hurt them with the deportation, which they cast in court filings as “punitive banishment” and “severe punishment” and warn the detainees could be put at risk of being “arbitrarily imprisoned, tortured, killed or severely harmed” if they are released in South Sudan.
Judge Randolph Moss in the DC District Court heard arguments in a pair of emergency hearings Friday afternoon before saying the case should be moved to Massachusetts.
“It seems self-evident the US government can’t take human beings and send them to a place where their physical well-being is at risk,” such as in South Sudan, either to punish them or to warn other possible migrants to the US of the consequences of illegal immigration, Moss said.
He ordered the Trump administration not to move the migrants until 4:30 p.m. ET and told the migrants’ lawyers they must move fast to try to get a judge to intervene in Massachusetts. The detainees’ lawyers filed their new claims just after 4 p.m. in Massachusetts’ federal district court.
Attorneys for the migrants said sending them to war-torn South Sudan would be further punishment than the sentences they’ve already served for crimes. A lawyer argued to Moss in court that the administration’s actions in this situation are unprecedented and “unlike anything that has ever been done by the US with deportations before.”
The Justice Department, however, argued that the latest ask for relief should’ve been filed earlier, in a different type of claim and a different court than Moss’. “They can’t justify their claim-splitting,” said Justice Department attorney Hashim Mooppan.
The Justice Department lawyer also expressed frustration to the court that the detainees’ legal approach appears to be an attempt to “drag … out” their being moved out of Djibouti, and said that the US diplomatic relations could be hurt by the multiple rounds of the court fight, as it negotiates with other countries to take migrants it seeks to deport.
The eight detainees in Djibouti are from countries including Myanmar, Sudan, Mexico, Vietnam, Laos and Cuba, according to court filings, but the administration since springtime has moved fast to put detainees like them and others on planes and send them to other countries, often with a history of significant safety risks and brutality.
The administration also revealed in court Friday additional details on the diplomatic correspondence between the United States and South Sudan, saying that upon arrival, the migrants would be granted an immigration status in accordance with South Sudan laws and immigration procedures, and that the US did not ask for them to be detained there.
Moss said on Friday he believed the lawyers for the detainees were “doing their best to protect the lives and well-being of human beings.”
He also cited a stark travel warning from the State Department cautioning Americans headed to the country. “It does appear placing people in South Sudan does pose significant risks to their physical safety,” Moss said.
Still, Moss limited how much he intervened over the US’ plans. The judge explained the very short stay he issued Friday afternoon by saying he didn’t believe courts should issue administrative stays that last longer than is necessary.
This headline and story have been updated with additional developments.
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