Flight carrying ‘barbaric' deportees from US to Africa stopped at Shannon Airport

Irish Times

22-05-2025

A US aircraft carrying deportees described by a US Homeland Security official as 'barbaric' and 'violent' to North Africa against the directions of a US federal court judge stopped at
Shannon Airport
on route to its destination.
Flight-tracking date obtained by the New York Times traced a Gulfstream jet owned by a private company that stopped off at Shannon after leaving an airport in Harlingen, Texas, on Tuesday. From Shannon, the aircraft travelled on to an airport in Djibouti, arriving there on Wednesday.
It is reported the final destination of the eight deportees is South Sudan.
At a hastily called press conference on Wednesday, Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary for public affairs at the department of Homeland Security, stressed the gravity of the crimes committed by the deportees.
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'We conducted a deportation flight from Texas to remove some of the most barbaric violent individuals illegally in the United States. No country on Earth wanted to accept them because their crimes are so monstrous and barbaric. Every single one of them was convicted of a heinous crime – murder, rape, child rape.'
The deportations are believed to include men from Vietnam, Cuba, Myanmar, Laos and Mexico and took place in conflict with the instructions of US district judge Brian E Murphy.
Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Harris has said he is seeking 'legal clarity' about the situation.
'Complying with US law is obviously a matter for the US administration. Complying with our own laws is obviously for the Irish state and the Irish government,' Mr Harris told RTÉ radio's Morning Ireland.
'There are very clear rules in relation to flights that can and can't stop over in Shannon and what they must do and not do. We need to see whether this was in compliance with that.'
Judge Murphy, a district judge in Massachusetts, had ordered the immigration authorities to carry out screenings interviews of the men to establish whether they qualified for humanitarian aid, with their lawyers and interpreters present.
His decision came after an emergency motion was filed by lawyers representing the men, stating that their clients were informed that they were being sent to South Sudan, rather than their home countries.
Ms McLaughlin went on to say that department of Homeland Security eventually found a country willing to accept the deportees before criticising Judge Murphy for 'trying to bring them back'.
'It is absolutely absurd for a district judge to try and dictate the foreign policy and national security of the United States of America.'
She declined to state where the final destination of the flight will be.
'We are following due process under the US constitution,' Ms McLaughlin said.
'These individuals and their lawyers have been given plenty of prior notice,' she said before 'imploring' the media present to write about the victims of the crimes which the deportees had committed.
The episode represents the latest clash between federal judges and the department over deportation flights taking place in defiance of court orders.
Judge Murphy ruled the US government's attempt to deport migrants to
South Sudan
'unquestionably' violated an earlier court order.
He made the remark at an emergency hearing he had ordered in Boston following the deportations.
On Tuesday, Judge Murphy ruled that US president
Donald Trump
could not let a group of migrants being transported to countries that were not their own leave the custody of US immigration authorities.
Lawyers for seven of the men were told that their clients were given little more than 24 hours notice that they were being expelled from the US.
Judge Murphy said that little amount of time was 'plainly insufficient'.
An eighth man in the group was a citizen of South Sudan, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
South Sudan, the world's youngest country, has widely been described as being on the verge of descending into another episode of civil war.
A South Sudan police spokesman said no migrants had arrived in the country from the US.
He said that if they did, they would be investigated and those found not to be from the country would be 're-deported to their correct country'. – Additional reporting: AP