The eight immigrants seeking relief had their request denied by a federal judge in Massachusetts on Friday, preventing their deportation to South Sudan. According to lawyers from the Justice Department, the deportation is set for 7 p.m. on Friday, following the consideration of an emergency request by two courts on July 4 and on the day the court closure was announced.
Immigrants hailing from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Burma, Sudan, and Vietnam filed new claims on Thursday after Boston federal judge Brian Murphy indicated he couldn’t compel the Department of Homeland Security to keep them in the country.
Meanwhile, Washington federal judge Randolph Moss temporarily halted the Trump administration’s attempts to deport eight immigrants to South Sudan. This lawsuit represents another challenge to the legality of the Trump administration’s policy aimed at relocating undocumented immigrants to third countries.
Judge Moss’s decision came after immigration lawyers presented a new claim in his court, which they then forwarded to Boston, where Judge Murphy had earlier denied their claim.
The eight men allege that deportation to South Sudan would breach constitutional protections against “cruel and unusual” punishment, as reported by Reuters. Among them, four individuals have been convicted of murder, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
These men spent six weeks detained at a military base in Djibouti instead of being returned to the U.S.
On Thursday, following an indication from the Boston federal judge that he couldn’t ask Homeland Security to stop their deportation, the immigrants moved to file new claims, as Reuters noted.
Trump administration officials have requested the Supreme Court’s approval to facilitate swift deportations of immigrants to countries other than their native lands.
During Friday’s hearing, government attorneys argued that implementing the order to halt deportations raises significant concerns for U.S. diplomatic relations and could discourage foreign countries from accepting these immigrant transfers in the future.
This situation adds another layer to the ongoing debate over the legality of the Trump administration’s strategy, which attempts to reduce immigration through policies that involve third-party country transfers, as per Reuters.
“It seems almost obvious that the U.S. government cannot take humans and send them into situations where their physical well-being is jeopardized,” Moss remarked during the hearing.
