Migrants and ICE officers contend with heat, smog and illness after detoured South Sudan flight
WASHINGTON — Migrants placed on a deportation flight originally bound for South Sudan are now being held in a converted shipping container on a U.S. naval base in Djibouti, where the men and their guards are contending with baking hot temperatures, smoke from nearby burn pits and the looming threat of rocket attacks, the Trump administration said.
Officials outlined grim conditions in court documents filed Thursday before a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit challenging Immigration and Customs Enforcement efforts to swiftly remove migrants to countries they didn't come from .
Authorities landed the flight at the base in Djibouti, about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from South Sudan, more than two weeks ago after U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Boston found the Trump administration had violated his order by swiftly sending eight migrants from countries including Cuba and Vietnam to the east African nation.
The judge said that men from other countries must have a real chance to raise fears about dangers they could face in South Sudan.
The men's lawyers, though, have still not been able to talk to them, said Robyn Barnard, senior director of refugee advocacy at Human Rights First, whose stated mission is to ensure the United States is a global leader on human rights. Barnard spoke Friday at a hearing of Democratic members of Congress and said some family members of the men had been able to talk to them Thursday.
The migrants have been previously convicted of serious crimes in the U.S., and President Donald Trump's administration has said that it was unable to return them quickly to their home countries. The Justice Department has also appealed to the Supreme Court to immediately intervene and allow swift deportations to third countries to resume.
The case comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by the Republican administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally. The legal fight became another flashpoint as the administration rails against judges whose rulings have slowed the president's policies.
The Trump administration said the converted conference room in the shipping container is the only viable place to house the men on the base in Djibouti, where outdoor daily temperatures rise above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), according to the declaration from an ICE official.
Nearby burn pits are used to dispose of trash and human waste, and the smog cloud makes it hard to breathe, sickening both ICE officers guarding the men and the detainees, the documents state. They don't have access to all the medication they need to protect against infection, and the ICE officers were unable to complete anti-malarial treatment before landing, an ICE official said.
'It is unknown how long the medical supply will last,' Mellissa B. Harper, acting executive deputy associate director of enforcement and removal operations, said in the declaration.
The group also lacks protective gear in case of a rocket attack from terrorist groups in Yemen, a risk outlined by the Department of Defense, the documents state.
___
Associated Press writer Rebecca Santana contributed to this story.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Abrego Garcia Returns to U.S. After Mistaken Deportation. Here's What's Next.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, was brought back to the U.S. to face criminal charges. The Trump administration on Friday brought Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. to face criminal charges that he was a key player in an international smuggling ring with gang ties.
Yahoo
18 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump Claims Feds Have 'Very Easy Case' Against Kilmar Abrego Garcia
President Donald Trump has expressed confidence that the federal government will win its case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran immigrant who has returned to the United States for criminal prosecution after being mistakenly deported and sent to a maximum security prison in El Salvador. 'It should be a very easy case,' Trump told NBC News on Saturday. The president also said it wasn't his decision to bring back Abrego Garcia, who lived in Maryland with his American citizen wife and children prior to his arrest in March. But, said Trump, the 'Department of Justice decided to do it that way, and that's fine.' Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Friday that Abrego Garcia had 'landed' back in the U.S., months after he was sent to the notorious CECOT facility in what the Trump administration called an 'administrative error.' The Justice Department brought Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. only to prosecute him on charges related to alleged involvement in a human smuggling operation that transported people in the country illegally. His attorneys said the charges were 'baseless' and that there was 'no way' a jury would be convinced of his guilt, per the Associated Press. Despite the admission that deporting Abrego Garcia was a mistake, the Trump administration defended the action, repeatedly characterizing Abrego Garcia as an MS-13 gang member ― something his lawyers and wife have denied. Kilmar Abrego Garcia Has Returned To The United States Senator Who Called For Abrego Garcia's Return Uses White House's Words Against Trump Eric Swalwell Blasts Kristi Noem For 'Bulls**t' Over Abrego Garcia Tattoo Pic
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Chabria: ICE arrested a California union leader. Does Trump understand what that means?
Unions in California are different from those in other places. More than any state in our troubled country, their ranks are filled with people of color and immigrants. While unions have always been tied closely with the struggles of civil rights, that has become even more pronounced in the years since George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis. In the subsequent national soul-searching, unions were forced to do a bit of their own. But where that conversation has largely broken down for general society under the pressure of President Trump's right-wing rage, it took hold inside of unions to a much greater degree — leading to more leadership from people of color, sometimes younger leadership and definitely an understanding from the rank and file that these are organizations that fight far beyond the workplace. Which is why the arrest of David Huerta, president of SEIU-USWW and SEIU California, by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Friday is going to have a major impact on the coming months as deportations continue. "They have woke us up," Tia Orr told me Saturday morning. She's the executive director of the 700,000-strong Service Employees International Union California, of which Huerta is a part, and the first African American and Latina to lead the organization. "And I think they've woke people up across the nation, certainly in California, and people are ready to get to action," she added. "I haven't seen that in a long time. I don't know that I've seen something like that before, and so yes, it is going to result in action that I believe is going to be historical." While unions have voiced their disapproval of mass deportations since the MAGA threat first manifested, their might has not gone full force against them, taking instead a bit of a wait-and-see approach. Well, folks, we've seen. We've seen the unidentified masked men rounding up immigrants across the country and shipping them into life sentences at torturous foreign prisons; we've watched a 9-year-old Southern California boy separated from his father and detained for deportation; and Friday, across Los Angeles, we saw an anonymous military-style force of federal agents sweep up our neighbors, family members and friends in what seemed to be a haphazard and deliberately cruel way. And for those of you who have watched the video of Huerta's arrest, we've seen a middle-aged Latino man in a plaid button-down be roughly pushed by authorities in riot gear until he falls backward, and seems to strike his head on the curb. Huerta was, according to a television interview with Mayor Karen Bass, pepper-sprayed as well. Then he was taken to the hospital for treatment, then into custody, where he remains until a Monday arraignment. U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli wrote on social media that "Federal agents were executing a lawful judicial warrant at a LA worksite this morning when David Huerta deliberately obstructed their access by blocking their vehicle. He was arrested for interfering with federal officers ... Let me be clear: I don't care who you are—if you impede federal agents, you will be arrested and prosecuted. No one has the right to assault, obstruct, or interfere with federal authorities carrying out their duties." I have covered protests, violent and nonviolent, for more than two decades. In one of the first such events I covered, I watched an iconic union leader, Bill Camp, sit down in the middle of the road in a Santa suit and refuse to move. Police arrested him. But they managed to do it without violence, and without Camp's resistance. This is how unions do good trouble — without fear, without violence. Huerta understands the rules and power of peaceful protest better than most. The union he is president of — SEIU United Service Workers West — started the Justice for Janitors campaign in 1990, a bottom-up movement that in Los Angeles was mostly powered by the immigrant Latina women who cleaned commercial office space for wages as low as $7 an hour. After weeks of protests, police attacked those Latina workers in June of that year in what became known as the "Battle of Century City." Two dozen workers were injured but the union did not back down. Eventually, it won the contracts it was seeking, and equally as important, it won public support. Huerta joined USWW a few years after that incident, growing the Justice for Janitors campaign. The union was and has always been one powered by immigrant workers who saw that collective power was their best power, and Huerta has led decades of building that truth into a practical force. He is, says Orr, an organizer who knows how to bring people together. To say he is a beloved and respected leader in both the union and California in general is an understatement. You can still find his bio on the White House website, since he was honored as a "Champion of Change," by President Obama. Within hours of his arrest, political leaders across the state were voicing support. "David Huerta is a respected leader, a patriot, and an advocate for working people. No one should ever be harmed for witnessing government action," Gov. Gavin Newsom posted online. Perhaps more importantly, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, speaking for her 15 million members, issued a statement. Huerta "was doing what he has always done, and what we do in unions: putting solidarity into practice and defending our fellow workers," she said. "The labor movement stands with David and we will continue to demand justice for our union brother until he is released." Similar statements came from the Teamsters and other unions. Solidarity isn't a buzzword to unions. It's the bedrock of their power. In arresting Huerta, that solidarity has been supercharged. Already, union members from across the state are making plans to gather Monday for Huerta's arraignment in downtown Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Stephen Miller, the Santa Monica native and architect of Trump's deportation plans, has said the raids we are seeing now are just the beginning, and that he would like to see thousands of arrests every day, because our immigrant communities are filled with "every kind of criminal thug that you can imagine on planet earth." But in arresting Huerta, the battleground has been redrawn in ways we don't fully yet appreciate. No doubt, Miller will have his way and the raids will not only continue, but increase. But also, the unions are not going to back down. "Right now, just in the last 14 hours, labor unions are joining together from far and wide, communities are reaching out in ways I've never seen," Orr told me. "Something is different." Rosa Parks was just a woman on a bus, she pointed out, until she was something more. George Floyd was just another Black man stopped by police. Until he was something more. Huerta is the something more of these immigration raids — not because he's a union boss, but because he's a union organizer with ties to both people in power and people in fear. The coming months will show what happens when those two groups decide, together, that backing down is not an option. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
