A federal court on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to keep custody of migrants it had deported to South Sudan, despite it not being their home country.
Judge Brian E. Murphy indicated that the decision to ship these individuals to Sudan violated an injunction he issued in April. “I am not going to order that the plane turn around,” the judge said. However, he did rule that the US must maintain control over the migrants after the plane lands.
Meanwhile, the court will determine whether the deportees received due process as Murphy’s order mandated, The New York Times reported.
The order capped a tumultuous hearing hastily called by the judge, during which Trump officials said they could not say where the flight was or where it was going.
Judge Murphy repeatedly expressed concerns that the administration had violated his order not to deport immigrants to countries where they are not from and may face danger without giving them enough time to challenge their removal. And he warned that officials involved in the deportations who were aware of his order, including potentially the pilots of the plane, could face criminal sanctions. “Based on what I have been told,” he said, “this seems like it may be contempt.”
The Times’ report provides some details about the proceedings:
Immigration lawyers at the hearing on Tuesday said at least two migrants had been told they were going to be deported to South Sudan, a violence-plagued country in Africa that the State Department advises Americans not to travel to.
After a break in the proceedings to gather information, a lawyer for the Justice Department, Elianis N. Perez, said that one of the migrants, who is Burmese, was returned home to Myanmar, not South Sudan. But she declined to say where the second migrant, a Vietnamese man, was deported, saying it was classified information. It was unclear how many other migrants might be on that deportation flight.
“Where is the plane?” Judge Murphy asked.
“I’m told that that information is classified, and I am told that the final destination is also classified,” Ms. Perez said. She said the government had not violated any court orders because the man had not claimed to be fearful of removal.
Judge Murphy asked what authority the government was using to classify the location of the deportation flight. “I don’t have the answer to that,” she responded.
JUST IN: Attorneys for Burmese and Vietnamese migrants accuse the Trump administration deporting them to South Sudan in violation of a court order. https://t.co/azWqcroR8J pic.twitter.com/8wNZs0OScH
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) May 20, 2025
The judge’s ruling came after the migrants’ attorneys filed an emergency motion accusing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of violating a previous court order by carrying out the deportations to Sudan without going through due process.
Murphy previously ruled that DHS must give written notice to deportees informing them that they are being deported to a country that they did not come from. The agency is required to give migrants at least 15 days to challenge the deportation order and seek protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT).
One of the migrants, a Burmese national “with limited English proficiency, refused to sign the notice of removal to South Sudan, which was provided to him only in English,” according to the lawsuit. The legal filing also noted that a Vietnamese individual was also sent to Sudan.
The plaintiffs requested that the court order their immediate return to the United States. They highlighted the dangers of being deported to South Sudan, describing it as “a country currently experiencing civil war and which Defendants themselves have designated for Temporary Protected Status.”
Indeed, Sudan faces several horrific human rights abuses and violence driven by the civil war. Armed groups have engaged in extrajudicial killings, torture, and kidnapping. These groups have targeted civilians, activists, and political opponents.