Donald Trump speaks at an election night watch party, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
A coalition of immigrants’ rights groups on Tuesday accused the Trump administration of violating the order of a federal judge prohibiting the government from summarily deporting migrants to countries other than where they are from with little or no due process.
In a 17-page emergency motion filed in the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, the advocates alleged that about a dozen members of the migrant class action case were unlawfully deported to South Sudan, and asked District Judge Brian Murphy to issue an order “reaffirming” that the plaintiffs still in the U.S. cannot be removed to a third country unless the government complies with his initial preliminary injunction.
Under the injunction Murphy issued last month, the government must provide “written notice” to all migrants and their attorneys about the proposed deportation destination, a “meaningful opportunity” to express fears that might occur in such countries under the torture convention — as well as an additional chance “to seek to move to reopen immigration proceedings to challenge the potential third-country removal.”
The judge said that an immigrant’s ability to challenge third-country removal must be granted with a minimum 15-day grace period.
However, one of the plaintiff-attorneys filed a sworn declaration claiming she was notified Monday evening that her client, a Burmese national with limited proficiency in English, was going to be removed to the war-torn South Sudan. By Tuesday morning, the attorney said she learned that her client had already been removed to South Sudan, where a “full-blown and catastrophic civil war” is currently underway.
According to the filing, the removal “blatantly defies this Court’s PI [preliminary injunction] to remove class members without a reasonable fear screening and a 15-day opportunity to submit a motion to reopen after any negative reasonable fear determination.”
On Tuesday, attorneys for the plaintiff class members said they received notification that a second class member, a Vietnamese national, “suffered the same fate” along with what is believed to be “at least 10 other class members.”
“Given that N.M., T.T.P., and other class members will be or have been removed to South Sudan in violation of the PI, Plaintiffs ask this Court for an immediate order ordering the immediate return of any class members removed to South Sudan,” the advocates wrote in the filing.
The accusation comes about a week after Murphy amended his initial injunction to ensure the defendants “did not seek to elude their obligations” under the court’s order “by arranging for other agencies to effectuate removals to third countries from Guantanamo Bay” after finding that the administration failed to provide notice and a meaningful opportunity for plaintiffs to challenge their removal.
Murphy, an appointee of Joe Biden, did not mince words when he issued his preliminary injunction in April, calling out the Trump administration for defending what he believed to be unlawful legal positions.
“Defendants argue that the United States may send a deportable alien to a country not of their origin, not where an immigration judge has ordered, where they may be immediately tortured and killed, without providing that person any opportunity to tell the deporting authorities that they face grave danger or death because of such a deportation,” he wrote in a 48-page memorandum and order. “All nine sitting justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Assistant Solicitor General of the United States, Congress, common sense, basic decency, and this Court all disagree.”
The judge said the record clearly showed the government had deported people to countries they have no connection to — because officials have admitted as such and argued such policies are aboveboard.
The judge rubbished this state of affairs, at length:
The Court finds it likely that Defendants have applied and will continue to apply the alleged policy of removing aliens to third countries without notice and an opportunity to be heard on fear-based claims — in other words, without due process. Defendants have repeatedly argued that they have no obligation to provide any process whatsoever when newly designating a third country for removal. Defendants’ own avowed position and the numerous declarations Plaintiffs have provided substantiate both the prior and future use of Defendants’ policy of providing no notice prior to third-country removal.
Those admissions by the government, the court said, were untenable — and only worked in favor of the plaintiffs.
