US judge says deportations by Trump administration to South Sudan likely violate court order

“Based on what I have been told, this seems like it may be contempt,” Murphy told Elianis Perez, a lawyer with the U.S. Department of Justice.

The judge had previously barred the Trump administration from swiftly deporting migrants to countries other than their own without first hearing any concerns that they might be tortured or persecuted if sent there.

Murphy, an appointee of former Democratic President Joe Biden, directed Perez to ensure that the pilots of a plane carrying the migrants to South Sudan were aware of his prior court order.

When he asked where the plane currently was, Perez said she had been informed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that information was “classified.” Murphy ordered her to have a lawyer from the agency who told her that to appear at a subsequent hearing.

Perez said the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, did not believe it was violating Murphy’s injunction. The agency did not respond to requests for comment.

The development marked a new clash between the federal judiciary and Republican President Donald Trump’s administration in its efforts to implement his calls for mass deportations as part of his hardline immigration agenda.

Another jurist, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, last month found “probable cause” to hold officials in criminal contempt for violating his order halting deportations of alleged members of a Venezuelan gang who had no chance to challenge their removals.

Lawyers for a group of migrants pursuing a class action lawsuit on behalf of migrants before Murphy on Tuesday said they learned that nearly a dozen migrants held at a detention facility in Texas were being flown to South Sudan on Tuesday morning.

Among them was a Vietnamese man who was held at the Port Isabel Detention Center in Texas. His spouse emailed his lawyer saying that he and 10 other individuals were believed to have been deported as well, according to a court exhibit.

The group also included nationals of Laos, Thailand, Pakistan and Mexico, the spouse said in the email. “Please help! They cannot be allowed to do this.”

Lawyers for the migrants said conditions in South Sudan have long been dangerous even for locals. The United Nations has warned that the country’s spiraling political crisis could reignite the brutal civil war that ended in 2018.

The department in February instructed immigration officers to review cases of people granted protections against being removed to their home countries to see if they could be re-detained and sent to a third country.

Murphy issued a preliminary injunction on April 18 designed to ensure the migrants were provided due process under the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.

The judge required the administration to provide written notice to migrants before removing them to a country not explicitly listed on their final orders of deportation and a “meaningful opportunity” to raise any fears for their safety if sent there.

The judge said any migrants who officials deemed to have not demonstrated a reasonable fear must be given at least 15 days to seek to reopen immigration proceedings to challenge their deportation.

Murphy has since further modified his injunction to guard against the possibility of DHS ceding control of migrants to other agencies to carry out rapid deportations, after the administration took the position that the U.S. Department of Defense was not covered by his orders.

It made that argument after acknowledging the Defense Department flew four Venezuelans held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to El Salvador after Murphy’s initial ruling. The judge said this month if the military similarly flew migrants to Libya, that would “clearly violate” his ruling.

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