A federal judge on Wednesday determined that the Trump administration clearly violated a court order by swiftly deporting immigrants to South Sudan.
The rebuke from U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, a Biden appointee, stands as one of the strongest challenges yet to President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda, highlighting the ongoing tension between executive authority and judicial oversight, Axios reported.
The deported individuals must be allowed access to legal counsel and provided with a reasonable fear interview in private, giving at least 72 hours’ notice, Murphy stated in a court order on Wednesday, the outlet reported.
“Should any individual raise a fear with respect to deportation to the third country that DHS determines falls short of ‘reasonable fear,’ the individual must be provided meaningful opportunity, and a minimum of 15 days, to seek to move to reopen immigration proceedings to challenge the potential third-country removal,” Murphy wrote.
The Department of Homeland Security must provide weekly status reports on each individual, Murphy added.
According to the order, it is up to the department’s discretion whether to return the individuals to the U.S. and conduct the process domestically, or to carry it out abroad while they remain in DHS custody.
All individuals “potentially involved in any removal that may implicate this order have been told that failure to comply with the terms of the preliminary injunction may subject them to civil or criminal contempt,” according to the court.
Murphy ruled that the government failed to provide sufficient time for eight immigrants of various nationalities to challenge their removal before they were placed on a flight to South Sudan early Tuesday.
“It was impossible for these people to have a meaningful opportunity to object to their transfer to South Sudan,” Murphy said, adding that the 17-hour window of the events was “plainly” and “undeniably” insufficient. He added that the “actions in this case were unquestionably in violation of this court’s order.”
The administration countered that those who were deported had been found guilty of heinous crimes including murder, attempted murder, and lewd sexual contact with chilren under the age of 12.
““We conducted a deportation flight from Texas to remove some of the most barbaric, violent individuals illegally in the United States. No country on earth wanted to accept them because their crimes are so uniquely monstrous and barbaric … Thanks to the courageous work of the State Department and ICE and the President’s national security team, we found a nation that was willing to accept custody of these vicious illegal aliens,” said Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.
“As a career law enforcement officer and a career officer with ICE, I’ve been dealing with these recalcitrant countries for years — having to see repeated murders, sex offenders, violent criminals re-released back into the United States because their home countries would not take them back,” said Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons.
“Under President Trump and under the leadership of Secretary Noem, we are now able to remove these public safety threats so they won’t prey on the community anymore,” he said.
According to a White House press release that listed the deportees and their crimes, “It’s another attempt by a far-left activist judge to dictate the foreign policy of the United States — and protect the violent criminal illegal immigrants President Donald J. Trump and his administration have removed from our streets.”
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling to allow the Trump administration to quickly deport 100 Venezuelans believed to be members of a gang designated as a terrorist organization by the president.
Justices instructed the appeals court, located in New Orleans, to quickly reconsider their ruling, which overturned a lower court that said Trump couldn’t use the Alien Enemies Act for fast deportations of anyone found to be a member of such gangs.
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