The Department of Homeland Security under President Donald Trump is preparing to deport a plane full of migrants from various countries to South Sudan — a nation teetering on the brink of civil war — defying a court order to do so, a legal expert warned Tuesday.
Prominent immigration attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick cited newly filed court documents on Tuesday in flagging the DHS move, highlighting that South Sudan is "on the brink of civil war" and noting the Trump administration would be "in direct defiance of a court order requiring ICE to give people an opportunity to raise objections before being sent to a country not their own."
This follows a similar effort earlier this month by ICE to send a group of migrants from several different countries, including Cambodians, Filipinos, and Vietnamese, to Libya, another troubled and politically unsafe African nation. Lawyers alleged that these migrants were being thrown in solitary confinement if they didn't agree to sign forms authorizing their expulsion to Libya.
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Now, attorneys are warning that a similar scheme appears to be underway with South Sudan.
"Litigators filed an emergency request for a restraining order to halt the flight from taking off or, if it's already in the air, to turn it around. Citing the Supreme Court's decision on the Alien Enemies Act, they emphasize that people on the flight were denied due process," wrote Reichlin-Melnick, who has constantly covered the Trump administration's mass deportation schemes and its alleged abuses. "The men reportedly being sent to South Sudan include at least two of the men the administration previously tried to send to Libya. If it's the same dozen men, it includes people from Mexico, Bolivia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and other countries."
The new complaint, he continued, asserts "that this flight to South Sudan, if it's real, would clearly violate a court order (which was already upheld by the First Circuit) which requires ICE to give people being deported to a country not their own a chance to raise concerns."
The Trump administration has been increasingly warring with the federal courts over immigration, although the president scored a win this week as the Supreme Court allowed the administration's plan to revoke protected status early from certain Venezuelan nationals while litigation over their case continues.