The Trump administration has completed the removal of eight foreign nationals to South Sudan after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted lower-court injunctions that had kept the men in legal limbo for six weeks. A military transport flight left Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti around 8:30 p.m. Eastern time on 5 July and landed in Juba roughly nine hours later, according to Department of Homeland Security officials.
The group—comprising citizens of Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and South Sudan—had finished or were nearing the end of prison sentences in the United States for violent crimes. Their home countries declined to accept them, prompting the administration to designate South Sudan as a so-called third-country destination. While in Djibouti, the men were held in a converted shipping container under constant guard.
Efforts to block the transfer centered on whether deporting migrants to a nation where they fear persecution violates U.S. and international law. U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston initially halted the removal in May, but the Supreme Court twice intervened, most recently on 4 July, ruling that Murphy could not impose nationwide injunctions in the case. Subsequent emergency appeals were denied the same day, clearing the way for Friday’s flight.
Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin called the deportation a “win for the rule of law, safety and security of the American people.” Rights advocates note that only one of the eight men is South Sudanese and that the State Department advises against travel to the country because of armed conflict, crime and kidnapping. South Sudanese officials have not disclosed whether the men remain in custody or their eventual status in the country.
So Trump has just deported eight men to South Sudan, where the State Department has warned against travel because of the risk of “crime, kidnapping and armed conflict.”