Trump Pushes Courts to Allow Deportations to South Sudan

By Staff, Agencies

A federal judge has already ruled that the government violated a court order by putting eight migrants on a flight to South Sudan.

This week, US President Donals Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court to allow it to continue with the accelerated deportation of migrants to third countries.

The request comes after a federal judge in Boston ruled that the government violated a court order by putting eight migrants on a flight to South Sudan without giving them the opportunity to legally challenge their expulsion.

The flight, which departed last week, landed in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa, where the migrants have been detained at a US military base. According to court documents, the government notified them only 24 hours in advance that they would be deported and did not allow them access to lawyers or a process to allege credible fear of torture or persecution, as required by law.

Judge Brian E. Murphy ruled that the Trump administration had violated a court order issued in April. That order required the government to provide migrants with a fair hearing before sending them to countries where they could face torture. Murphy noted that officials “deliberately misinterpreted” the court order and accused them of “manufacturing the very chaos they now denounce.”

In his most recent ruling, the judge did not order the migrants to be returned to the United States, as their lawyers had requested. Instead, he accepted a proposal from the government itself that immigration proceedings be conducted from the base in Djibouti.

However, days later, the Justice Department filed a motion for reconsideration, arguing that conducting these proceedings outside the country is too complex.

"It turns out that having immigration proceedings on another continent is harder than they anticipated," Murphy responded sarcastically.

In addition, the judge emphasized that having a criminal record does not eliminate the constitutional right to due process.

For now, the future of migrants in Djibouti remains uncertain. The Supreme Court will have the final say on whether the government can continue with expedited deportations to third countries without offering the due process guaranteed by the Constitution.