A US judge condemned President Donald Trump’s administration, saying reports of deportation into South Sudan appear to violate his previous court orders.
On Tuesday in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy held a virtual hearing to weigh the emergency motion on behalf of immigrants who were exiled on a flight to South Sudan.
He asked the Trump administration to lawyers to determine where immigrants were. He also showed that he could ask him to turn around on the flight and called on the pilot to make him aware of his court order.
“Based on what I was told, this seems like a light empty,” Judge Murphy told Elianis Perez, a lawyer with the Trump Justice Department.
Perez responded to Murphy’s request for the plane’s location, saying the Department of Homeland Security deemed such information “classified.” Perez also showed that the Trump administration has not considered itself in violation of Murphy’s previous court orders.
In a recent annual report, the US State Department accused South Sudan of “critical human rights issues” including torture and extrajudicial killings.
However, the Trump administration was searching overseas for destinations to send undocumented immigrants who are currently not detained by the US, especially those whose home countries do not accept them.
During a hearing Tuesday, Judge Murphy said the flight to South Sudan appears to be in violation of an interim injunction issued on April 18.
The injunction called for the Trump administration to give immigrants the right opportunity to appeal to them to remove them.
Judge Murphy simply wanted immigrants “an opportunity to explain why such deportation could lead to persecution, torture and/or death.”
He cited the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution. This guarantees legitimate process rights. In other words, it is a fair hearing within the US court system.
Earlier this month, on May 7, immigration lawyers indicated that their clients would be sent to Libya, another country with serious human rights concerns.
Former President Joe Biden’s appointee, Judge Murphy, held that such deportation would violate his injunction.
In an emergency court filing Tuesday, those immigrants’ lawyers highlighted how close the case is. The migrant in question was already on the bus, sat on the airport runway and was ordered to return it.
Emergency motions are identified only by their initials and country of origin, Myanmar and Vietnam.
However, it explains what it allegedly happened to them in the last 24 hours and seeks immediate lawsuits from the court.
The lawyers alleges that one migrant from Myanmar, known as NM, in the court application, received notice of removal on Monday. The destination was identified as South Africa. Within ten minutes, the court filing said the email was recalled by the sender.
A few hours later, it was said that a new notification of deletion was sent. This time we named South Sudan as our destination.
In both cases, NM refused to sign the document. Emergency petition lawyers have shown that NM has “limited proficiency in English” and that no translators have been provided to understand English documents.
One NM’s lawyer said he intends to meet him Tuesday morning, but by the time they were appointed she was informed that he had already been taken from his detention facility on the way to South Sudan.
The emergency includes a copy of emails sent to lawyers from the families of deported people.
“I believe my husband (editor of his name) and 10 other individuals sent to the Port Isabel Detention Centre in Los Fresnos, Texas, have been deported to South Africa or Sudan,” the email begins.
“This is not right! I fear that my husband and his group are made up of people from Laos, Thailand, Pakistan, Korea and Mexico.