By No. 1 Citizen and Agencies
US and South Sudanese officials have clarified that South Sudan is not the ultimate destination for deportees from the United States.
This statement comes a day after the Department of Homeland Security criticized a federal judge’s order to maintain custody of migrants reportedly on a deportation flight to South Sudan.
The agency said it was seeking to deport eight “uniquely barbaric monsters” who had all been convicted of crimes including murder, rape and kidnapping.
But agency spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told reporters South Sudan was not the migrants’ final destination, BBC reported.
Ms McLaughlin told a briefing on Wednesday: “Every single one of them was convicted of a heinous crime, murder, rape, child rape, rape of a mentally and physically handicapped victim.”
She said it was “absurd for a US judge to try to dictate the foreign policy and national security of US”.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons said: “If we don’t have a country that’ll take their citizens back, we do have an option to find a safe third country.”
Meanwhile, South Sudan Police spokesperson Maj. Gen. James Monday Enoka said if the deportees are proven not to be South Sudanese, they will be sent to their home countries.
“When they arrive, they will be investigated, the truth will be established, and they will be deported again to their correct country if they are proven that they are not South Sudanese,” The Radio Community quoted.
Enoka assured that South Sudanese authorities would be actively involved in the process of establishing their nationalities.
“When they arrive, I will definitely be at the airport, or one of my staff will be there, we will know. We will inform the media,” he added.
Immigrant rights advocates say White House violated court order and ask judge to order nearly a dozen people’s return.
Immigrant rights advocates have accused the Trump administration of deporting about a dozen migrants from countries including Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan in violation of a court order, and asked a judge to order their return.
Lawyers for the migrants made the request in a court filing on Tuesday directed to US district judge Brian Murphy, who had barred the Trump administration from swiftly deporting migrants to countries other than their own without first hearing any concerns they had that they might be tortured or persecuted if sent there.
They said they learned that nearly a dozen migrants held at a detention facility in Texas were flown to South Sudan on Tuesday morning. Murphy told a lawyer with the US Department of Justice during a hastily arranged virtual hearing that the potential violation might constitute criminal contempt and he was weighing ordering a plane carrying the migrants to the African country to turn around.
Those migrants included an individual from Myanmar, identified by the initials NM in court documents, whose lawyer received an email on Monday from an official with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement informing the attorney of the intent to deport his client to South Sudan.
According to court documents, NM – who has “limited English proficiency” – refused to sign the notice of removal, which was provided to him only in English, in violation of a previous court order.
The migrant’s lawyers said they learned their client had been flown to South Sudan on Tuesday morning.
The spouse of a Vietnamese man who was held at the same detention center in Texas emailed his lawyer, meanwhile, saying he and 10 other individuals were deported as well, according to the motion.
The lawyers asked the judge for an emergency court order to prevent removal without an opportunity to go to court.
“Return is imminently reasonable – and necessary – in such a situation, as the Supreme Court recognized in recent weeks,” they wrote, in reference to the case of Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador.