Lawyers claim Trump administration is trying to send people to South Sudan

Despite State Department warnings, and in the face of a court order that sufficient process be given, lawyers allege a quick effort to deport people to the country.

Lawyers submitted significant evidence to a federal court on Tuesday that the Trump administration is trying to deport people to South Sudan who have no connection to the country with little to no due process.

At a hastily called hearing in the case held later Tuesday, which was not publicly noted on the docket or the court’s calendar, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy — per a report from The New York Times — questioned the government about the claims and was told that a flight that left the U.S. on Tuesday and its destination were deemed “classified” by the Trump administration.

“I’m told that that information is classified, and I am told that the final destination is also classified,” Elianis Perez, the lawyer appearing for the Justice Department, said, per the Times.

For now, Murphy — who previously ordered the Trump administration to provide sufficient process before seeking such removals — ordered that the administration “maintain custody and control of class members currently being removed to South Sudan or to any other third country“ until he can continue the hearing on Wednesday.

Murphy is open to levying criminal contempt sanctions here, if the government’s actions are as alleged, the Times report made clear.

The Trump administration’s apparent attempt to send people to South Sudan who have no connection to the country is both horrifying on its face and appears to directly violate a preliminary injunction issued by Murphy earlier this year.

The State Department under Secretary of State Marco Rubio has a “Do Not Travel,” highest-warning-level travel advisory, urging Americans to stay away from the country “due to crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict.“ Additionally, the advisory notes, “Due to the risks in the country, on March 08, 2025, the Department of State ordered the departure of non-emergency U.S. government employees from South Sudan.”

As lawyers for people being deported detailed in a court filing on Tuesday, the situation in South Sudan has destabilized even further since then:

On Tuesday, however, the Trump administration appears to have sent a plane bound for South Sudan across the ocean as part of an effort at third country removal — deportation to a country other than the person’s country of birth or another country in which they have legal status.

In a Tuesday filing in ongoing litigation before Murphy over third country removals, lawyers presented evidence that such removals to South Sudan were being planned:

Notice the date — 5/19/2025 — and time — 1748, presumably 5:48 p.m. — when the person was informed of these plans, and in English. Additional information presented to the court led the lawyers to believe such a plan for South Sudan removals is to involve multiple people. And, they presented further information that a flight departed on Tuesday morning bound for South Sudan.

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The preliminary injunction

Lawyers have been concerned about the lack of process in the Trump administration’s third country removals, filed a lawsuit in March, and received a preliminary injunction from Murphy, who laid out the simple case before him:

This case presents a simple question: before the United States forcibly sends someone to a country other than their country of origin, must that person be told where they are going and be given a chance to tell the United States that they might be killed if sent there? Defendants argue that the United States may send a deportable alien to a country not of their origin, not where an immigration judge has ordered, where they may be immediately tortured and killed, without providing that person any opportunity to tell the deporting authorities that they face grave danger or death because of such a deportation. All nine sitting justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Assistant Solicitor General of the United States, Congress, common sense, basic decency, and this Court all disagree.

Accordingly, here is what Murphy had ordered in his preliminary injunction issued on April 18:

[T]he Court orders that, prior to removing any alien to a third country, i.e., any country not explicitly provided for on the alien’s order of removal, Defendants must: (1) provide written notice to the alien—and the alien’s immigration counsel, if any—of the third country to which the alien may be removed, in a language the alien can understand; (2) provide meaningful opportunity for the alien to raise a fear of return for eligibility for CAT protections; (3) move to reopen the proceedings if the alien demonstrates “reasonable fear”; and (4) if the alien is not found to have demonstrated “reasonable fear,” provide meaningful opportunity, and a minimum of 15 days, for that alien to seek to move to reopen immigration proceedings to challenge the potential third-country removal.

Despite that, the plaintiffs already went back to Murphy when word came that the administration might be seeking to deport people to Libya without process, prompting a May 7 order noting, “The April 18, 2025 Preliminary Injunction requires all third-country removals to be preceded, inter alia, by written notice to both the non-citizen and the non-citizen’s counsel in a language the non-citizen can understand as well as a meaningful opportunity for the non-citizen to raise a fear-based claim for CAT protection. … If there is any doubt—the Court sees none—the allegedly imminent removals, as reported by news agencies and as Plaintiffs seek to corroborate with class-member accounts and public information, would clearly violate this Court’s Order.”

On Tuesday, when faced with the evidence about imminent — and potentially ongoing — removals to South Sudan, they went back again, filing an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction. In its accompanying legal brief, the lawyers make clear the stark lack of process, nonetheless, still being provided:

Note the import of the quotation from this past week’s Supreme Court ruling in Alien Enemies Act litigation holding that 24-hour notice “surely does not pass muster.”

Hours later, at the hearing on Tuesday, Murphy tentatively agreed. According to the Times’s report, he was rather direct:

The judge 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.”

Also per the Times, DOJ’s Perez told Murphy that one of the people, “who is Burmese, was returned to Myanmar, not South Sudan.“ But, Perez would not say where the other person is being sent.

Following the hearing, Murphy issued an order — setting forth the government’s overnight obligations to “maintain custody and control of class members” and telling the Justice Department what has is expecting when the hearing continues at 11 a.m. Wednesday:

Specifically, DOJ is to be prepared to name everyone removed and explain: "(1) the time and manner of notice each individual received as to their third-country removal; and (2) what opportunity each individual had to raise a fear-based claim."

It should also be noted that Wednesday’s hearing in the case, D.V.D. v. DHS, was previously scheduled to address a separate issue covered at Law Dork on Monday: The treatment of O.C.G., a gay man in hiding currently following deportation without, his lawyers say, sufficient process.