Latest news with #JudgeMoss
New York Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Judge Pauses Transfer of Eight Migrants to South Sudan
The fate of eight men, now held on a U.S. military base in Djibouti, is once again unclear after a district court judge in Washington issued a very brief administrative stay that blocked the government from deporting them to South Sudan. On Thursday afternoon, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could move forward with its plans to send the men on from Djibouti to the violence-plagued country of South Sudan. The men have all been convicted of serious crimes in the United States. Before coming to the United States, they hailed from Vietnam, Mexico, Laos, Cuba and Myanmar. Just one is from South Sudan. After the Supreme Court ruling, lawyers for the eight men filed a new lawsuit arguing that the deportation plan is 'impermissibly punitive' under a Supreme Court precedent that bars summarily deporting migrants to places where they will experience an 'infamous punishment,' such as hard labor. On Friday, the attorneys asked Judge Randolph D. Moss of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia to issue an order blocking the transfer to South Sudan. After the Supreme Court ruled, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department, said these 'sickos will be in South Sudan by Independence Day,' and, on Friday, a government lawyer said a plane would take off with the men at 7 p.m. Eastern time. That timeline now seems to be in jeopardy. Judge Moss ruled that the case should be transferred back to the District of Massachusetts, where Judge Brian E. Murphy had been considering an earlier lawsuit brought by the migrants, the one that had led to the Supreme Court ruling. Shortly after 3 p.m., Judge Moss barred the government from deporting the men before 4:30 p.m., which he said was enough time for their lawyers to refile their claim in Massachusetts. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
The migrants filed a new lawsuit challenging their transfer on other grounds.
The fate of eight men, now held on a U.S. military base in Djibouti, is once again unclear after a district court judge in Washington issued a very brief administrative stay that blocked the government from deporting them to South Sudan. On Thursday afternoon, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could move forward with its plans to send the men on from Djibouti to the violence-plagued country of South Sudan. The men have all been convicted of serious crimes in the United States. Before coming to the United States, they hailed from Vietnam, Mexico, Laos, Cuba and Myanmar. Just one is from South Sudan. After the Supreme Court ruling, lawyers for the eight men filed a new lawsuit arguing that the deportation plan is 'impermissibly punitive' under a Supreme Court precedent that bars summarily deporting migrants to places where they will experience an 'infamous punishment,' such as hard labor. On Friday, the attorneys asked Judge Randolph D. Moss of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia to issue an order blocking the transfer to South Sudan. After the Supreme Court ruled, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department, said these 'sickos will be in South Sudan by Independence Day,' and, on Friday, a government lawyer said a plane would take off with the men at 7 p.m. Eastern time. That timeline now seems to be in jeopardy. Judge Moss ruled that the case should be transferred back to the District of Massachusetts, where Judge Brian E. Murphy had been considering an earlier lawsuit brought by the migrants, the one that had led to the Supreme Court ruling. Shortly after 3 p.m., Judge Moss barred the government from deporting the men before 4:30 p.m., which he said was enough time for their lawyers to refile their claim in Massachusetts. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CNN
2 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
Djibouti detainees rushing to court as they face potential deportation to South Sudan tonight
A countdown is on for a plane of eight migrant detainees to be flown from a US Naval base in Djibouti to the war-torn country of South Sudan Friday night. Lawyers for the migrants are rushing to a federal court in Massachusetts Friday afternoon to try to block the plane from taking off. So far Friday, the migrants got a brief reprieve from Judge Randolph Moss in the DC District Court. Moss held an emergency hearing before deciding the case should be moved to Massachusetts. He has ordered the Trump administration not to move the migrants until 4:30 p.m. ET and has told the migrants' lawyers they must move fast to try to get a judge to intervene in Massachusetts. The plane in Djibouti is scheduled to take off at 7:00 p.m. ET, the Trump administration said in court Friday. 'It seems self-evident the US government can't take human beings and send them to a place where their physical well-being is at risk,' such as in South Sudan, either to punish them or to warn other possible migrants to the US of the consequences of illegal immigration, Moss said at the hearing. The plaintiffs are arguing they will face torture if they are sent to South Sudan by the US and are being deprived of their constitutional rights because the Trump administration is trying to unfairly hurt them with the deportation. In explaining the very short stay he issued Friday afternoon, Moss said he didn't believe courts should issue administrative stays that last longer than is necessary. The court drama playing out on the Independence Day holiday in the US comes after the Supreme Court ruled Thursday in the administration's favor that the eight migrants are among those whom the government could deport to a third-party country like South Sudan.
CNN
2 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
Djibouti detainees rushing to court as they face potential deportation to South Sudan tonight
A countdown is on for a plane of eight migrant detainees to be flown from a US Naval base in Djibouti to the war-torn country of South Sudan Friday night. Lawyers for the migrants are rushing to a federal court in Massachusetts Friday afternoon to try to block the plane from taking off. So far Friday, the migrants got a brief reprieve from Judge Randolph Moss in the DC District Court. Moss held an emergency hearing before deciding the case should be moved to Massachusetts. He has ordered the Trump administration not to move the migrants until 4:30 p.m. ET and has told the migrants' lawyers they must move fast to try to get a judge to intervene in Massachusetts. The plane in Djibouti is scheduled to take off at 7:00 p.m. ET, the Trump administration said in court Friday. 'It seems self-evident the US government can't take human beings and send them to a place where their physical well-being is at risk,' such as in South Sudan, either to punish them or to warn other possible migrants to the US of the consequences of illegal immigration, Moss said at the hearing. The plaintiffs are arguing they will face torture if they are sent to South Sudan by the US and are being deprived of their constitutional rights because the Trump administration is trying to unfairly hurt them with the deportation. In explaining the very short stay he issued Friday afternoon, Moss said he didn't believe courts should issue administrative stays that last longer than is necessary. The court drama playing out on the Independence Day holiday in the US comes after the Supreme Court ruled Thursday in the administration's favor that the eight migrants are among those whom the government could deport to a third-party country like South Sudan.
New York Times
4 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Trump Administration Live Updates: Fractured House G.O.P. Fights Over Trump's Bill as His Deadline Looms
Border agent cars stationed near the U.S. border with Mexico in Sasabe, Ariz., in February. A federal judge in Washington ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration cannot categorically deny asylum claims from people crossing the southern border, striking down a change made on President Trump's first day in office. The ruling rejected the idea, repeatedly put forth by the president, that such extraordinary powers were justified to curtail what Mr. Trump has called an invasion of the United States by immigrants crossing the southern border. In a hefty 128-page opinion, Judge Randolph D. Moss of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that the Constitution and federal immigration law did not afford Mr. Trump the expansive authorities he claimed. 'The court recognizes that the executive branch faces enormous challenges in preventing and deterring unlawful entry into the United States and in adjudicating the overwhelming backlog of asylum claims of those who have entered the country,' he wrote. But neither the Constitution nor the current law governing asylum seekers, Judge Moss wrote, could 'be read to grant the president or his delegees authority to adopt an alternative immigration system which supplants the statutes that Congress has enacted.' Despite the sweeping terms of the order, Judge Moss postponed them from taking effect for two weeks to allow for an appeal. As the administration has sought maximum authority to curb immigration, the matter appeared likely to eventually reach the Supreme Court. The Trump administration filed an appeal hours after the judge's ruling. The case focused on a Trump proclamation — titled 'Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion' — seeking to suspend the nation's refugee admissions program and override procedures that Congress set in the Immigration and Nationality Act. Under the president's proclamation, the government has effectively shut down avenues at the southern border for people fleeing persecution or torture to apply for asylum and remain in the United States. At the same time, Mr. Trump has moved to suspend other programs granting certain groups temporary protected status. The immigrant rights groups behind the lawsuit argued that the Trump administration had usurped Congress's power to make laws governing the system for asylum. They brought a legal challenge on behalf of more than a dozen people who had been detained or removed from the United States without their asylum claims being addressed. 'Under the proclamation, the government is doing just what Congress by statute decreed that the United States must not do,' the immigrant rights groups wrote in their complaint. 'It is returning asylum seekers — not just single adults, but families too — to countries where they face persecution or torture, without allowing them to invoke the protections Congress has provided.' Many of those people had experienced political persecution in their home countries of Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Peru and Turkey, according to court filings. Their lawyers said some were subjected to 'traditional torture' at the hands of those governments. 'This ruling means that asylum will once again be available for those fleeing horrific danger and in doing so, reaffirms that the president must respect the laws Congress enacts,' Lee Gelernt, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who argued the case, said. 'The decision will literally mean the difference between life and death for many families escaping religious and other forms of persecution.' As part of the ruling on Wednesday, Judge Moss agreed to certify asylum seekers in the case as a class, making the ruling applicable to those 'currently present in the United States.' That marked an critical win for most individuals facing the Trump administration's policy after the Supreme Court last week limited the power of individual judges to issue nationwide injunctions. Class actions, involving many people in a similar situation, were not affected by the court's ruling on birthright citizenship. Although the lawsuit had been designed as a class action since it was filed in February, the Trump administration immediately moved to cast the ruling as a workaround of the Supreme Court's recent decision. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and an architect of Mr. Trump's immigration policy, said on social media that the judge's order was an attempt to 'circumvent' the Supreme Court's will and carve out 'a protected global 'class' entitled to admission into the United States.' But the central question at issue in the case — whether the president can override immigration law set by Congress — was one Judge Moss had shown skepticism about for some time. During a hearing in April, Judge Moss clashed with a Justice Department lawyer, Drew Ensign, over what he said were the apparently unlimited powers the executive branch believed it could take through Mr. Trump's order. Judge Moss, an Obama appointee, rattled off a list of hypotheticals, including whether Mr. Trump could authorize officials to shoot at anyone trying to cross into the United States. He homed in on the notion, repeated throughout the executive order, that the president could consolidate power in cases in which the United States was facing a so-called invasion. 'Your view is the president can do anything in the world to implement an entry bar, even if it's unlawful, and there's just nothing you can do about it?' he asked. Mr. Ensign rejected the situations the judge posed as unrealistic, but appeared to maintain that if the president did take any of those actions that they would not be subject to judicial review. Ultimately, Judge Moss concluded on Wednesday that the president had effectively tried to make an end run around the law under the pretense of a hostile invasion. 'The president may not act in derogation of the laws that Congress has enacted,' he wrote.
