Judge threatens DHS with ‘criminal obstruction’ after illegal immigrants deported to South Sudan

Yet another federal judge is flogging the Trump administration for wrongly deporting people, this time to South Sudan, saying the government defied his orders to keep the illegal immigrants in the U.S. until they had full due process to challenge their removals.

The migrants sat on an airplane Wednesday in South Sudan, guarded by U.S. agents, as U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Massachusetts pondered their fate. He ruled that the Department of Homeland Security must give them a new chance to mount those challenges.

He said the government can either scramble to hold hearings in South Sudan, as long as it can guarantee full access to attorneys, or it must return them to go through the process in America.

“Based on what I have learned, I don’t see how anybody could say these individuals had a meaningful opportunity to object,” said Judge Murphy, who was appointed to the bench by President Biden.

“I find that my preliminary injunction order has been violated,” he said.

He raised the possibility of contempt, saying the defiance of his earlier orders was so stark that he considered finding that “criminal obstruction” occurred.

Homeland Security lambasted the judge for intervening, saying the migrants are murderers and rapists whose home countries wouldn’t take them back. Officials said the U.S. was lucky to find a country that would allow the plane to land.

“It is absolutely absurd for a district judge to try to dictate the foreign policy and national security of the United States of America,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a press conference called to offer a prebuttal ahead of the judge’s action.

That the migrants were deportable is not in question, but where they were sent is the issue.

Judge Murphy said the government was obligated to give them a chance to argue that they faced the possibility of torture in South Sudan.

He said the 17 hours from Monday, when they were told they were being sent to South Sudan, to Tuesday, when they were put on a plane, fell well short of what due process required.

The judge noted that those 17 hours were largely outside business hours, meaning they couldn’t reach a lawyer.

After the judge’s ruling Wednesday, Ms. McLaughlin took to social media to call it “deranged.”

The judge also had slammed the government for wrongly claiming in court that another deportee to Mexico was given a chance to object, which he called “a really big deal.”

The case has quickly escalated into the next major constitutional confrontation between President Trump and the judiciary. Homeland Security officials say Judge Murphy is “trying to force the United States to bring back these uniquely barbaric monsters.”

During the hearing Wednesday, the Justice Department mentioned seven deportees on the plane, though Homeland Security officials publicly identified eight.

They are Jose Manuel Rodriguez-Quinones, a Cuban convicted of attempted murder; Enrique Arias-Hierro, a Cuban convicted of homicide and kidnapping; Thongxay Nilakout, a Laotian convicted of murder; Jesus Munoz-Gutiereez, a Mexican convicted of murder; Dian Peter Domach, a South Sudan citizen convicted of robbery; Kyaw Mya, a Burmese citizen convicted of a sex crime against a child less than 12 years of age; Nyo Myint, another Burmese citizen convicted of sexual assault against a mentally infirm person; and Tuan Thanh Phan, a Vietnamese citizen convicted of murder.

Judge Murphy delayed Wednesday’s hearing to listen to Homeland Security’s press conference.

He said he also had taken stock of South Sudan’s response, which he said indicated that the government plans to immediately send the migrants to their home countries.

Judge Murphy said that made it seem like the U.S. government was using South Sudan as an intermediary to do what U.S. immigration judges said couldn’t be done: send them home to countries where they face persecution or torture.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials cast the issue differently for reporters.

They didn’t describe any torture concerns and instead said the home countries refused to provide authorization to send back these particular people.

“No country on earth wanted to accept them because their crimes are so uniquely monstrous and barbaric,” Ms. McLaughlin said.

The case touches on many of the issues that have dogged Mr. Trump as he tried to speed up ousters and meet his goal of “mass deportations.”

In another case before Judge Murphy, the government appears to have wrongly deported a Guatemalan man, identified in court documents by the initials O.C.G., to Mexico, without asking whether he had reason to fear being sent to Mexico.

Homeland Security initially told the judge it had checked with O.C.G. but now acknowledges it cannot verify that ever happened.

Judge Murphy ordered the government to get to the bottom of things.

“This is a really big deal. It’s a really big deal to lie to the court under oath,” Judge Murphy said, commenting on the “overwhelming series of errors” in a case that is less than 2 months old. “I could not take this more seriously.”

O.C.G. has since fled Mexico back to Guatemala, where his attorney said he is in hiding and paralyzed with fear.

The South Sudan deportations also touch on the due process issues the Supreme Court has grappled with in Mr. Trump’s deportations of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act.

In a ruling Friday, the justices said the Trump team was shortchanging migrants by offering them less than 24 hours’ notice to challenge their deportations.

The high court had said it was up to lower judges to determine the right time.

One district judge has said migrants should be given 21 days for deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.

In his ruling Wednesday evening, Judge Murphy issued a minimum 10-day period from when migrants are served their deportation notices to when they can be booted to a third country.

The migrants can use that time to argue that they face persecution or torture if sent to a third country. If they succeed, their case is automatically reopened. They have another 15 days to petition for a full review if they fail.

That means at least a month for deportations under the judge’s purview.

Drew Ensign, a Justice Department attorney, said the judge was using the wrong standard. He said this week’s deportations are not under the Alien Enemies Act but regular immigration law.

He said the migrants have already gone through regular due process, and their deportation now is similar to expedited removal. This shorter process takes place for new arrivals at the border.

Judge Murphy had been skeptical of that distinction during the hearing.

No issue has proved too minuscule for litigation when it comes to immigration.

In one federal courtroom in New Jersey, for example, the government argued Wednesday with attorneys for Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil over whether he should be allowed to hold his baby, born while he has been in immigration detention in Louisiana.

ICE says such a visit would violate security protocols in the facility and that no such accommodation has ever been made.

A judge brushed aside those objections and ordered a visit on Thursday.