Trump Allegedly Violates Court Order, Sends Asian Immigrants to South Sudan
After an appeals court declined to remove an injunction aimed at barring Donald Trump's administration from deporting noncitizens to 'third-party countries' — a country that is not their country of origin — without due process, and without giving them chance to raise concerns of persecution, torture, and death, the government allegedly violated that court order days later.
Two men, who are originally from Myanmar and Vietnam and were being held in U.S. immigration custody, were deported to war-torn South Sudan, according their lawyers, Politico reported. Their lawyers said they received the a notice of the deportation plan on Monday evening and that by Tuesday morning, they were on a plane with 10 other deportees.
Earlier this month, as Rolling Stone reported, the Trump administration was preparing to use a military plane to fly immigrants to Libya before Judge Brian Murphy clarified that doing so would violate his court order. Lawyers with the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, and Human Rights warned that 'Laotian, Vietnamese, and Philippine' immigrants, who are being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Texas, were 'being prepared for removal to Libya, a county notorious for its human rights violations, especially with respect to migrant residents.'
Lawyers for the Burmese man, per Politico, said he was originally scheduled to be on a flight to Libya, before the plan was abandoned amid media and legal scrutiny. The attorneys also said that the man, identified as N.M. in court papers, received notification about the deportation to South Sudan only in English, violating Judge Murphy's previous order due to N.M.'s limited English proficiency.
A level four travel advisory from the the U.S. State Department warns Americans to avoid travel to South Sudan. The country entered into civil war in 2013 and per the U.S. government, 'Armed conflict is ongoing and includes fighting between various political and ethnic groups.' The travel advisory also warns that 'Violent crime, such as carjackings, shootings, ambushes, assaults, robberies, and kidnappings are common throughout South Sudan. … Foreign nationals have been the victims of rape, sexual assault, armed robberies, and other violent crimes.'
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