Trump administration asks Supreme Court to clear the way for a South Sudan-bound deportation flight

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to clear the way for the deportation of several immigrants to South Sudan, a war-ravaged country where they have no ties.

The motion comes a day after the justices allowed immigration officials to restart quick deportations to third countries, halting a lower-court order that had allowed migrants to challenge removals to countries where they could be in danger.

But Judge Brian Murphy in Boston found the deportation flight diverted to Djibouti in May couldn’t immediately resume its path to South Sudan. While he acknowledged the Supreme Court decision pausing his broader order, he said his ruling on that flight remained in place. The migrants must still get a chance to argue in court that they’d be in danger of torture if sent there, he found.

The Trump administration pushed back in a court filing, calling the judge’s finding “a lawless act of defiance that, once again, disrupts sensitive diplomatic relations and slams the brakes on the Executive’s lawful efforts to effectuate third-country removals.”

Attorneys for the migrants say they could face “imprisonment, torture and even death” if sent to South Sudan, the world’s newest and one of its poorest countries. South Sudan has endured waves of violence since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, and escalating political tensions in the African nation have threatened to devolve into another civil war.

The push comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by Trump’s Republican administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally. Because some countries do not accept their citizens deported from the U.S., the administration has reached agreements with other countries, including Panama and Costa Rica, to house immigrants.

Murphy, who was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, didn’t prohibit deportations to third countries. But he found migrants must have a real chance to argue they could be in serious danger of torture if sent to another country.

He ruled immigration officials violated his order with the South Sudan flight that left on short notice with eight men from countries including Myanmar, Vietnam and Mexico who had been convicted of serious crimes in the U.S.

The administration then appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing the judge had overstepped his authority. The high court’s conservative majority agreed to halt the order in a brief decision handed down without a detailed explanation, as is typical on the court’s emergency docket. All three liberal justices on the nine-member court joined a scathing dissent.