Immigrant rights advocates have accused the Trump administration of deporting about a dozen migrants from countries including Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan in violation of a court order, and asked a judge to order their return.
Lawyers for the migrants made the request in a court filing on Tuesday directed to US district judge Brian Murphy, who had barred the Trump administration from swiftly deporting migrants to countries other than their own without first hearing any concerns they had that they might be tortured or persecuted if sent there.
They said they learned that nearly a dozen migrants held at a detention facility in Texas were flown to South Sudan on Tuesday morning. Murphy told a lawyer with the US Department of Justice during a hastily arranged virtual hearing that the potential violation might constitute criminal contempt and he was weighing ordering a plane carrying the migrants to the African country to turn around.
Those migrants included an individual from Myanmar, identified by the initials NM in court documents, whose lawyer received an email on Monday from an official with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement informing the attorney of the intent to deport his client to South Sudan.
According to court documents, NM – who has “limited English proficiency” – refused to sign the notice of removal, which was provided to him only in English, in violation of a previous court order.
The migrant’s lawyers said they learned their client had been flown to South Sudan on Tuesday morning.
The spouse of a Vietnamese man who was held at the same detention center in Texas emailed his lawyer, meanwhile, saying he and 10 other individuals were deported as well, according to the motion.
The lawyers asked the judge for an emergency court order to prevent removal without an opportunity to go to court.
“Return is imminently reasonable – and necessary – in such a situation, as the supreme court recognized in recent weeks,” they wrote, in reference to the case of Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, gained independence from Sudan in 2011, and has since struggled with armed conflict and poverty. Between 2013 and 2018, fighting between factions loyal to the current president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, and his vice-president, Riek Machar, killed nearly 400,000 people.
The US state department recommends against traveling to South Sudan “due to crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict”.
