WASHINGTON/NAIROBI (Reuters) -The Trump administration has deported to South Sudan eight migrants who had been held for more than a month by the U.S. at a military base in Djibouti, the Department of Homeland Security said on Saturday, after the migrants lost a last-ditch effort to halt their transfer to the politically unstable country.
The men were deported on Friday, the July 4 Independence Day holiday in the U.S., Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a press release.
“This was a win for the rule of law, safety and security of the American people,” McLaughlin said.
An aircraft carrying U.S. deportees arrived in South Sudan on Saturday, two officials working at Juba airport said.
An airport staffer speaking on condition of anonymity told Reuters he had seen a document showing that the aircraft “arrived this morning at 6:00 am” (0400 GMT). An immigration official also said the deportees had arrived in the country but shared no further details, referring all questions to the National Security Service intelligence agency.
Earlier, a South Sudan government source said U.S. officials had been at the airport awaiting the migrants’ arrival.
The fate of the migrants had become a flashpoint in the fight over the legality of the Trump administration’s campaign to deter immigration through high-profile deportations to so-called “third countries” where migrants say they face safety concerns, which has already gone from lower courts to the Supreme Court twice.
South Sudan has long been dangerous even for local residents. The U.S. State Department advises citizens not to travel there due to violent crime and armed conflict. The United Nations has said the African country’s political crisis could reignite a brutal civil war that ended in 2018.
The eight men, who according to their lawyers are from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Sudan and Vietnam, had argued their deportations to South Sudan would violate the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
They had been held in U.S. custody in Djibouti since a federal judge in Boston in May blocked the Trump administration from immediately moving them to South Sudan over due process concerns.
Following additional litigation, the Supreme Court on Thursday sided with the administration, lifting those limits.
Two courts considered requests from the migrants’ lawyers on an emergency basis on Friday, when courts are otherwise closed for the holiday, but ultimately U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston said the Supreme Court order required him to deny their bid, clearing the way for their deportation.
The location of the men in South Sudan after their arrival was not immediately known.
(Reporting by Nairobi bureau; additional reporting by Ryan Patrick Jones in Toronto and Andrea Shalal in Bedminster, New Jersey; editing by Diane Craft and Nick Zieminski)
