A federal judge appointed by former President Joe Biden denied President Donald Trump’s claim that his ruling giving eight individuals time to contest deportation to South Sudan put Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at risk.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy last week said the Trump administration violated a court order on deportations to third countries with the flight to the chaotic nation of South Sudan.
Murphy, in Boston, said the eight migrants aboard the plane weren’t given a meaningful opportunity to object that the deportation could put them in danger.
The men currently are being held on a U.S. military base in Djibouti, a small country on the nearby Horn of Africa, Politico reported. The judge allowed for the men to remain in U.S. custody overseas while giving them a chance to raise fear of potential violence and danger in South Sudan.
Trump, in a post on his Truth Social platform, last week said Murphy “forced” the administration to leave “a large number of ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officers” in Djibouti “to watch these hardened thugs.”
Senior Trump aide Stephen Miller has called Murphy a “local city judge” from Boston and claimed Murphy put ICE officers at risk by forcing them to live full-time alongside the detainees bound for South Sudan, Politico reported.
Murphy denied that claim.
“The court never said that defendants had to convert their foreign military base into an immigration facility,” Murphy wrote in his Monday night order. “It only left that as an option, again, at defendants’ request.”
The judge also rejected the Trump administration’s demand that he reconsider or delay his previous ruling that the administration provide “meaningful” notice before deporting people to countries where they could face torture or death.
“It continues to be the court’s hope that reason can get the better of rhetoric,” Murphy wrote “The orders put in place here are sensible and conservative.
“The court recognizes that the class members at issue here have criminal histories. But that does not change due process. … The court treats its obligation to these principles with the seriousness that anyone committed to the rule of law should understand.”
On Monday, Trump used Truth Social to call out “USA hating judges who suffer from an ideology that is sick and very dangerous for our country.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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