Judge orders Trump administration to retain custody of Asian immigrants removed to South Sudan

A federal judge on Tuesday evening ordered the Trump administration to maintain custody of immigrants that lawyers say were removed from a Texas detention facility and abruptly sent to conflict-ridden South Sudan.

U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Massachusetts ordered the administration to keep the individuals within the custody of immigration officials so that they could be returned if the court determined their deportation was unlawful.

“While the Court leaves the practicalities of compliance to Defendants’ discretion,” Murphy wrote, referring to the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi, “the Court expects, that class members will be treated humanely.”

Murphy said government lawyers should be prepared at a scheduled Wednesday hearing to detail the immigrants removal and explain whether detainees were informed and given the opportunity to contest deportation to a third country based on fear for their safety.

The order was in response to an emergency motion asking Murphy to intervene after attorneys learned two Asian immigrants held in detention in Texas, along with nine others, had been sent to South Sudan.

According to lawyers, the men, one from Myanmar and the other from Vietnam, were given notice on Monday by officers at the Port Isabel Detention Center in Los Fresnos, Texas, they would be removed to South Africa. The men refused to sign the order, according to court records. The officers quickly rescinded, only to come back with another order saying they would be removed to South Sudan. Again, the men didn’t sign. The next morning their lawyers and family members couldn’t locate them, according to court documents.

Murphy had already ordered the administration to halt any removal to any third country after it attempted to deport a group of 13 men to Libya earlier this month. At the time, Murphy warned that the administration would violate a previous court order that officials must provide detainees with due process, including receiving notice of the removals in their own language and getting the opportunity to argue that sending them outside their home country could threaten their safety.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Jacqueline Brown, who represents the Burmese man, identified in court documents as N.M., wrote that her client had been part of the group that was to be deported to Libya, before it was stopped. She had an appointment with N.M. at 9 a.m. Tuesday, but when she checked the detainee locator service to find him, he was gone. She wrote an immigration officer asking for N.M.’s whereabouts and was told he had been removed this morning to South Sudan.

The east-central African country is engulfed in armed conflict and the world’s third largest refugee crisis, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. As of 2023, 2.3 million people had fled to neighboring countries and 2.2 million were displaced internally.

“Armed conflict between various political and ethnic groups continues throughout the country,” the U.S. State Department says in an advisory not to travel to the country, noting that kidnapping, road ambushes, armed robbery, murder and home invasion “are pervasive.”

The Burmese man, who spoke the regional language of Karen, had final orders to be removed from Nebraska, home to about 8,000 refugees from Myanmar, which is ruled by a military dictatorship. Many of the refugees are from the Karen ethnic minority who escaped the long-running civil war.

The Vietnamese man had signed orders to be deported back to Vietnam, according to his spouse. He was held with 10 other immigrants — from Laos, Thailand, Pakistan, Korea and Mexico — who were removed with him, the spouse told lawyers at the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.

“Please help!” the man’s spouse said. “They cannot be allowed to do this, this is not the first and won’t be the last if they keep getting away with this. I am begging for your assistance.”

“The detention centers are overcrowded with inhumane conditions and ICE is sending people anywhere they can to combat overcrowding. This is not right,”