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The Trump administration “unquestionably” violated a court order when it put eight migrants with violent criminal convictions onto a flight to South Sudan, a Biden-nominated federal judge ruled Wednesday.
US District Judge Brian Murphy, who was nominated to the seat by former President Joe Biden in 2024, slammed the White House for failing to provide the men with adequate due process when ordering them on a flight bound to the African nation, of which only one of them is actually from.
“The department actions in this case are unquestionably in violation of this court’s order,” the judge said in an emergency hearing, suggesting the White House may have committed criminal contempt.
Murphy alleges that the eight immigrants were not given a “meaningful opportunity” to object that the deportation could put them in danger in South Sudan, one of the world’s most dangerous and war-torn nations suffering from food shortage, ethnic conflict and violent crime.
While the White House touted that it had sent the “monstrous and barbaric” immigrants to South Sudan, President Trump confirmed that the men are currently being held in Djibouti, a small country on the Horn of Africa where the US holds a military base.
“A Federal Judge in Boston, who knew absolutely nothing about the situation, or anything else, has ordered that EIGHT of the most violent criminals on Earth curtail their journey to South Sudan, and instead remain in Djibouti,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “He would not allow these monsters to proceed to their final destination.”
Homeland Security declined to say where exactly in the African country the men have ended up for “safety and operational security” reasons.
South Sudan officials, who did not consent to the deportations, also confirmed that no foreign migrants had arrived in the country.
Maj. Gen. James Monday Enoka, the nation’s police spokesman, said that any arrival would be investigated, with all foreign-born migrants set to be “re-deported to their correct country.”
Attorney Jonathan Ryan — who represented one of the migrants, Nyo Myint, of Myanmar — said his client received two conflicting deportation notices a day before the flight, with both notices given to him in English, a language he barely understands.
“I have no idea where he is,” Ryan told the BBC. “He’s been disappeared by the United States government.”
Myint was convicted of first-degree sexual assault involving a victim mentally and physically incapable of resisting in Lincoln, Nebraska.
The Trump administration has defended the deportations, with Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary for DHS, mocking Murphy’s order to reprocess the migrants as “deranged.”
“[Myint] sexually assaulted a mentally disabled woman with the mental capacity of a three-year-old,” she told The Post.
“This “Lincoln man” is an ILLEGAL ALIEN and one of the monsters that the activist Massachusetts District Judge is trying to bring back to the United States after he was deported yesterday.”
Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, added that the countries where the migrants were from — Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and South Sudan — refused to take the men back.
Lyons maintains that the deported migrants represent “true national security threats,” with the men previously convicted of rape, homicide, armed robbery and other violent crimes.
With Post wires
English (US)