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Trump orders deportations to South Sudan, federal judge accuses violation of law

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Despite a court-imposed ban, some Asian migrants were allegedly transferred to South Sudan, an unstable country marked by a new risk of civil war.

South Sudan becomes the controversial new destination for deportations ordered by the Trump administration, after El Salvador. Denouncing this are lawyers for 12 migrants from South-East Asia, who claim that their clients were deported to the African country in violation of an order by a federal judge in Massachusetts.

According to court documents and internal correspondence acquired by the lawyers, the deportations took place ‘without ensuring a real opportunity’ to challenge the order, as stipulated in the ruling issued last month. South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, which emerged from a civil war in 2018 thanks to a fragile peace agreement, is now once again at risk of instability and open conflict.

Among the reported cases were that of a Burmese citizen (N.M.) and a Vietnamese (T.T.P.), for whom an emergency motion had been filed last 7 May. At the time, faced with the risk of imminent deportation to countries such as Libya or Saudi Arabia, the court had blocked the transfer and ordered the return of the migrants to a detention centre, after they had been left on the airport runway for hours.

Today, according to the lawyers, those same migrants are deported to South Sudan, ‘a country that is returning to a full-scale and catastrophic civil war’. Federal Judge Brian Murphy allowed the new appeal, stating that ‘based on what I have heard there would be a violation’ of his earlier order.

For its part, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed the deportation of eight migrants, described as ‘dangerous criminals’ and ‘monsters’, while not clarifying whether South Sudan was the final destination. ‘No country on earth wants to accept them because their crimes are so particularly monstrous and barbaric. These horrible individuals have terrorised American streets for far too long,’ said spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin, referring to convictions for serious crimes such as rape and murder.

In a highly contentious statement, McLaughlin accused Judge Murphy of wanting to protect individuals who pose ‘a clear and immediate threat to the security of the American people’, criticising the magistrate’s decision to order the government to keep the deportees in custody to allow them to return to the United States if there are irregularities in the removal procedures.

The episode reignites the debate on the legality of deportations to unstable third countries, and the balance between national security and the protection of migrants’ fundamental rights, even when convicted of serious crimes. The issue now remains in the hands of the judiciary, which will have to establish whether the deportations took place in violation of the law.

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