Eight men deported from the US in May and held under guard for weeks at an American military base in the African nation of Djibouti while their legal challenges played out in court have reached the Trump administration’s intended destination, war-torn South Sudan, a country the state department advises against travel to due to “crime, kidnapping and armed conflict”.
The men from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and South Sudan arrived in South Sudan on Friday after a federal judge cleared the way for the Trump administration to relocate them in a case that had gone to the supreme court, which had permitted their removal from the US. Administration officials said the men had been convicted of violent crimes in the US.
“This was a win for the rule of law, safety and security of the American people,” Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security spokesperson, said in a statement on Saturday announcing the men’s arrival in South Sudan.
The supreme court cleared the way for the transfer of the men last Thursday.
The men had been put on a flight in May bound for South Sudan but which was diverted to a base in Djibouti, where they were held in a converted shipping container. The flight was diverted after a federal judge found that the administration had violated his order by failing to allow the men a chance to challenge the removal.
The supreme court’s conservative majority had ruled in June that immigration officials could quickly deport people to third countries. The majority halted an order that had allowed immigrants to challenge any removals to countries outside their homeland where they could be in danger.
A flurry of court hearings on4 July resulted in a temporary hold on the deportations while a judge evaluated a last-ditch appeal, before the judge decided he was powerless to halt their removals and that the person best positioned to rule on the request was a Boston judge whose rulings had led to the initial halt of the administration’s effort to begin deportations to South Sudan.
By Friday evening, that judge had issued a brief ruling concluding that the supreme court had tied his hands.
US authorities have reached agreements with other countries to house immigrants who cannot quickly be send back to their homelands.