TheTrump administrationasked theUS supreme courtlate on Tuesday to halt an order allowing peopleto challengetheir deportations from the US to South Sudan, an appeal that came hours after the federal judge overseeing the case suggested the Trump administration was “manufacturing” chaos and said he hoped that “reason can get the better of rhetoric”.
Judge Brian Murphy found the White House violated a court order with a deportation flight bound for thechaotic African nationcarrying people from other countries who the Trump administration said had been convicted of crimes in the US. Murphy said those people must get a real chance to raise any fears that being sent there could put them in danger.
“From the course of conduct, it is hard to come to any conclusion other than that defendants [the Trump administration] invite a lack of clarity as a means of evasion,” the Boston-based Murphy wrote in his 17-page order.
The federal government argued that Murphy has stalled its efforts to carry out deportations of people who can’t be returned to their home countries. Finding countries willing to take them is a “a delicate diplomatic endeavor” and the court requirements are a major setback, the US solicitor general, John Sauer, wrote in an emergency appeal asking the court to immediately halt his order.
Murphy, a district judge in Massachusetts, said he had given the Trump administration “remarkable flexibility with minimal oversight” in the case and emphasized the numerous times he attempted to work with the government, according to an order published on Monday night.
This is the latest case in which federal judges weighing in on the legality of the Trump administration’s sweeping agenda have used forceful, sometimes even scathing language to register their displeasure. The Trump administration has accused judges of thwarting “the will of voters” by stopping or slowing the White House agenda, a dramatic break in attitude about the role of the judiciary in interpreting the rule of law.
In a hearing last week called to address reports that eight people had been sent to South Sudan, Murphy said the men hadn’tbeen able to arguethat the deportation could put them in danger.
But instead of ordering the government to return the men to the US for hearings – as the plaintiffs wanted – he gave the government the option of holding the hearings in Djibouti, where the plane had flown on its way toSouth Sudan, as long as the men remained in US government custody. Their exact whereabouts and status at that time was not made public. Days later, the Trump administration filed another motion saying that Murphy was requiring them to hold “dangerous criminals in a sensitive location”.
Murphy, though, said it was the government’s “own suggestion” that they be allowed to process the men’s claims while they were still abroad.
“It turns out that having immigration proceedings on another continent is harder and more logistically cumbersome than defendants anticipated,” the Boston-based Murphy, who was appointed by Joe Biden, wrote.
The government has argued that the men had a history with theimmigration system, giving them prior opportunities to express a fear of being deported to a country outside their homeland. And they’ve said that the men’s home countries – including Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar and Vietnam – would not take them back.
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The Trump administration has increasingly relied on third countries to take people who cannot be sent to their home countries for various reasons. Some countries simply refuse to take back their citizens being deported while others take back some but not all of their citizens. And some cannot be sent to their home countries because of concerns they’ll be tortured or harmed.
Historically that has meant that immigration enforcement officials have had to release people into the US that it wants to deport but can’t.
But the Trump administration has leaned on other countries to take them, including Panama and El Salvador.
The Associated Press contributed reporting