Attorneys have informed an American court that the government potentially deported migrants from Vietnam and Myanmar to South Sudan mistakenly, in contravention of a court injunction prohibiting such deportations.
Immigration attorneys informed a federal judge on Tuesday that the American government could have deported migrants from nations like Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan, an East African country plagued by conflict and instability.
In a last-ditch appeal to a Massachusetts court, the attorneys argued that this flight would be in contravention of an earlier injunction granted by Judge Brian Murphy. That injunction prohibited the Trump administration from deporting migrants to third countries before providing them with legitimate legal rights to oppose the deportation.
The attorneys averred that migrants being deported to South Sudan are in peril of suffering serious harm, citing widespread violence, human rights violations, and continued conflict in the nation.
They reported that they had discovered that around a dozen migrants detained in a Texas detention centre were flown to South Sudan on Tuesday morning. During an emergency virtual hearing, Judge Murphy informed a Department of Justice lawyer that this possible breach could be criminal contempt and he was weighing whether to instruct the plane to return.
Court filings say the migrants included a male from Myanmar, only identified as NM. His attorney received an email on Monday from a US immigration official who told them that NM would be removed to South Sudan. NM, with only limited English proficiency, also declined to sign the notice of deportation because it lacked translation—in violation of an order by the court that the notice should be in a language that the migrant can understand.
His lawyers then discovered that he had been sent to South Sudan on Tuesday morning. The wife of another Vietnamese man, who was detained at the same Texas centre, also told his attorney that he and 10 others had been deported, the filing states.
