A federal judge said the Trump administration violated a court order preventing it from deporting migrants to countries other than their own without first giving them adequate notice and a chance to object.
“The department’s actions in this case are unquestionably violative of this court’s order,” U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy said in a hearing Wednesday.
Earlier this week, lawyers for undocumented men alleged in a filing that the Trump administration defied Murphy’s court order by deporting them to South Sudan, a country on the verge of civil war and where violent crimes, including kidnappings and rape, are common, according to the Department of State.
In response to pending deportations to Libya, Murphy last month ruled that the Trump administration could not remove foreign nationals to countries they are not citizens of and have no relation to — so-called “third-party countries” — without giving them “meaningful” notice and a chance to raise claims they might be persecuted, tortured or killed.
A three-judge panel for the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Murphy’s order last week. The judges said they were concerned about the “irreparable harm that will result from wrongful removals in this context.”
In the hearing, Murphy said the government did not give the men a chance to challenge their transfers. “Based on what I have learned, I don’t see how anybody could say these individuals had a meaningful opportunity to object,” Murphy said.
Murphy did not determine if the government’s actions were criminally contemptuous, saying he would leave that determination for another day.
The judge said he would not order the government to return the men to the U.S. Instead, he said the government must allow the men to challenge their transfer to South Sudan from where they currently are, which may be a U.S. military base in Djibouti. If their claims are credible, the judge they’ll likely be brought back to the U.S.
Plaintiffs argued that the arrangement will be logistically difficult and questioned if the men will have appropriate access to counsel, credible information on the conditions in South Sudan and interpreters.
Department of Justice lawyers defended the government’s actions Wednesday by claiming that they believed notice 24 hours before removal was sufficient and that any “misunderstanding” was the result of Murphy’s order.
The removals came just days after the Supreme Court ruled in a separate but similar case that the government violated the due process rights of Venezuelan migrants by not giving them adequate time to challenge.
“Under these circumstances, notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster,” SCOTUS said Friday.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials confirmed in a press conference earlier Wednesday that at least eight people were put on a flight out of the U.S., claiming that the removed men committed crimes and that their home countries would not accept them.
Though they said the deportations adhered to Murphy’s order, the DHS officials attacked the judge in the press conference Wednesday, with one claiming that he “wants these criminals, these rapists, murderers, out on the streets.”
When asked if it’s safe to send the men to South Sudan, the officials would not confirm the flight’s destination for national security reasons. After a reporter noted that the title of their press conference was “DHS Press Conference on Migrant Flight to South Sudan,” the officials repeated that they would not confirm if South Sudan would be the final destination.