WASHINGTON (AP) — In May, eight men were deported from the United States and detained for weeks at an American military base in Djibouti, Africa, as they awaited the outcome of their legal battles in court. These men have now been transferred to South Sudan, a country plagued by war and deemed unsafe for travel by the State Department due to “crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict.”
The group, consisting of individuals from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam, and South Sudan, arrived in South Sudan on Friday. This move followed a federal judge’s decision that allowed the Trump administration to proceed with their relocation, a decision that had reached the Supreme Court, which sanctioned their removal from the U.S. According to administration officials, the men had previously been convicted of violent crimes while in the United States.
“This was a win for the rule of law, safety, and security of the American people,” stated Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin. Her announcement on Saturday confirmed the men’s arrival in South Sudan, a nation once again teetering on the brink of civil war.
The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for the transfer of the men who had been put on a flight in May bound for South Sudan. That meant that the South Sudan transfer could be completed after the flight was detoured to a base in Djibouti, where they men were held in a converted shipping container. The flight was detoured after a federal judge found the administration had violated his order by failing to allow the men a chance to challenge the removal.
The court’s conservative majority had ruled in June that immigration officials could quickly deport people to third countries. The majority halted an order that had allowed immigrants to challenge any removals to countries outside their homeland where they could be in danger.
A flurry of court hearings on Independence Day resulted a temporary hold on the deportations while a judge evaluated a last-ditch appeal by the men’s before the judge decided he was powerless to halt their removals and that the person best positioned to rule on the request was a Boston judge whose rulings led to the initial halt of the administration’s effort to begin deportations to South Sudan.
By Friday evening, that judge had issued a brief ruling concluding the Supreme Court had tied his hands.
The men had final orders of removal, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have said. Authorities have reached agreements with other countries to house immigrants if authorities cannot quickly send them back to their homelands.
