By Maegan Vazquez, Maria Sacchetti — Federal immigration authorities may have deported up to a dozen immigrants from Myanmar, Vietnam and other countries to South Sudan on Tuesday despite federal court orders prohibiting it, lawyers for the immigrants said in an emergency court filing.
A federal immigration officer confirmed that at least one immigrant from Myanmar had been deported Tuesday morning to the African nation, according to the court records. The spouse of a man from Vietnam said he told her that he and at least 10 others had also been flagged for deportation to that country.
Lawyers for the immigrants argued in court records that the hasty removals would violate U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy’s orders barring the government from deporting people to countries where they are not citizens without giving them a chance to challenge that decision. They asked the judge, based in Massachusetts, to order their immediate return. The allegations come weeks after the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that South Sudan has been engaged in an “ongoing armed conflict” and after a U.N. official warned that the country was at risk of slipping back into civil war.
After reports indicated that U.S. immigration officers were preparing to deportpeople from Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines to Libya, Murphy earlier this month had warned that the Trump administration could not deport immigrants to any country where they are not citizens without due process. He said at the time that such a move would violate standing court orders intended toshield people from being expelled to countries where they could be harmed or killed.
The migrant from Myanmar who was sent to South Sudan was among the group the Trump administration tried to deport to Libya, lawyers said in Tuesday’s filing.
The Department of Homeland Security and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Lawyers for the migrants say their clients were not provided meaningful notice or a chance to raise concerns about potential harm they could face in South Sudan. One migrant was also exclusively provided a notice in English, even though their proficiency in English is limited. Tuesday’s filing said both migrants refused to sign the notices.
The filing also said that the notices did not include information “about whether or how he could seek protection based on fear of deportation to South Sudan, a country currently experiencing civil war and which Defendants themselves have designated for temporary protected status.”
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Adam Taylor, Marianne LeVine and Dan Lamothe contributed to this report.
