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Eight men the Trump administration attempted to send to South Sudan are in temporary custody in Djibouti after a federal court ruling halted their removal, officials confirmed on Thursday.
The Trump administration had attempted to send the men, who it said had been convicted of criminal offenses, to their home countries: officials said two each were from Myanmar and Cuba and the others were from Vietnam, Laos, Mexico and South Sudan.
When the countries declined to accept them, authorities arranged to fly them to South Sudan on Tuesday, a country that remains under a US state department travel advisory due to persistent instability and threats to safety.
The removals were challenged in court. On Wednesday evening Brian Murphy, a US district judge in Boston, determined that the administration had disregarded his earlier judicial directive, issued in April, which ruled that anyone being deported to third-party countries had the right to challenge it legally. He criticized the brief window allowed for the men to object to their transfer, labeling it “clearly inadequate”.
The group is currently being held by the Department of Homeland Security in Djibouti, which also hosts a key US military installation. At a briefing on Wednesday the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, confirmed that the men would stay in Djibouti for two weeks.
Donald Trump responded to the ruling on his Truth Social platform, expressing dissatisfaction with the order. The US president wrote that the judge “has ordered that EIGHT of the most violent criminals on Earth curtail their journey to South Sudan, and instead remain in Djibouti. He would not allow these monsters to proceed to their final destination”.
The president added that the administration was “also forced to leave behind, in order to watch these hardened thugs, a large number of Ice Officers, who would otherwise be in the United States, protecting our Citizens”.
Murphy’s ruling stipulated that the men must receive adequate notice and a minimum of 15 days to contest their deportation, aligning with international human rights standards. He further specified that six of the individuals had the right to assert, with legal representation, fears of torture or mistreatment in the destination country.
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Attorneys for the Vietnamese man and one of the Myanmar men said that their clients were informed only the night before or on the day of the scheduled flight, despite claims from the administration that they were given proper notification.
