Eight illegal immigrants are living in a shipping container on a U.S. military base in the African country of Djibouti after a federal judge this week said a Supreme Court ruling allowing third-country deportations doesn’t apply to them.
The Trump Justice Department is now asking the justices to clarify their ruling and tell the judge he’s misconstruing their Monday ruling.
The case has quickly flipped the script on Democrats, who for months have accused President Trump of ignoring court orders. Now it’s a Democrat-appointed judge, Brian Murphy of the U.S. District Court in Boston, who finds himself under attack for defying the justices.
One Republican senator even suggested Judge Murphy was leading an “insurrection” for giving the Supreme Court “the middle finger.”
“A radical liberal, progressive, leftist judge, Brian Murphy, who was confirmed in the lame duck session when Joe Biden, President Autopen, may not even have known he was appointing this person, approved by the Democrats in the Senate, is now refusing to obey a Supreme Court order for the deportation of seven criminal aliens,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt, Missouri Republican.
Third-country removals come when deportees’ home nations refuse to take them back. The U.S. can still deport them if it can find another country willing to accept them.
Judge Murphy, though, put a hold on those removals, saying the administration needed to grant more “due process” to them before they were ousted. That, he said, meant a written notice detailing the new country they were to be sent to, a chance to argue to Homeland Security that they face danger if sent to that country and, if that fails, another 15 days to appeal the ruling in the immigration courts.
Even so, the Trump administration worked out a deal with South Sudan to accept eight deportees, all with serious felony records, including murder.
Judge Murphy stepped in and tried to stop the deportation midflight, ruling that the government needed to give the illegal immigrants more “due process” chances to challenge their deportation to South Sudan.
“Based on what I have learned, I don’t see how anybody could say these individuals had a meaningful opportunity to object,” Judge Murphy ruled.
The Supreme Court, in a brief order this week, ruled against Judge Murphy’s initial decision that the migrants deserved more due process.
Judge Murphy then quickly issued his own ruling, saying that decision didn’t affect the eight migrants sitting in Djibouti, who he has said must be given new hearings before being released to South Sudan.
Justice Department lawyers said that was “untenable.”
“The district court’s ruling of last night is a lawless act of defiance,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices.
Judge Murphy, in his ruling Monday after the justices’ ruling, said that while the high court issued an injunction against his initial “due process” ruling, it did not affect his later rulings on the South Sudan deportations.
For evidence, he cited Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent from the high court’s Monday ruling.
Mr. Sauer said that was weak justification, since it was from a dissent, meaning it wasn’t the majority opinion.
Lawyers for the eight migrants in Djibouti said the government never challenged Judge Murphy’s rulings on those specific deportations, only his broader due process decision. That means the judge’s rulings are still viable.
The migrants in Djibouti 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-Gutierrez, a Mexican convicted of murder; Dian Peter Domach, a South Sudanese convicted of robbery; Kyaw Mya, a Burmese citizen convicted of a sex crime against a child less than 12 years old; Nyo Myint, another Burmese citizen convicted of sexual assault against a mentally infirm person; and Tuan Thanh Phan, a Vietnamese convicted of murder.
Their container was converted to quarters, and they have round-the-clock guards from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
U.S. officials said the situation is tenuous, with nearby burn pits causing illnesses among the migrants and ICE officers, plus rocket attacks from rebels in Yemen placing their lives in danger.
