May 7 (UPI) — A federal judge has warned the Trump administration — amid reports it plans to deport migrants to Libya — that doing so would violate court orders prohibiting the government from shipping deportees to a third country.
U.S. District Court Judge Brian Murphy issued his two-page order Wednesday in response to an emergency request from plaintiffs who said Laotian, Vietnamese and Filipino class members were facing imminent removal on military aircraft to Libya — a country known for human rights abuses committed against migrants and refugees — without written notice or the opportunity to contest their removal on the basis of fear of persecution, torture and death if removed.
The plaints filed the request following reports published Tuesday stating Trump administration officials had readied military aircraft to fly the deportees to Libya as soon as Wednesday.
As corroboration, the plaintiffs state in their request that an attorney was verbally informed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement that their Filipino client would be removed to Libya. At least one other detainee — a Laos citizen — was also verbally informed that he was to be removed imminently to Saudi Arabia, the court document states.
They added that they should not be required to make such a request as their deportation would “blatantly” defy earlier court orders, but that they had to due to the evidence of their imminent deportation without written notice and time to contest their removal
Murphy, on Wednesday, sided with the plaintiffs, stating the relief they seek has already been provided by a previously issued preliminary injunction in the case, and that he is issuing the new order as a motion for clarification.
“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,” he said.
The plaintiffs brought their case against the Trump administration on March 23, about a week after it sent more than 200 migrants to El Salvador where they are being indefinitely held in an infamous mass prison.
The noncitizens who filed the class-action complaint are challenging the Department of Homeland Security’s policy of sending deportees to a third country without prior notice or an opportunity to contest their removal on the basis of fear or persecution, torture and death if removed from the United States.
On April 18, Murphy granted the plaintiffs a preliminary injunction against their deportation without notice and the ability to contest it — an order Murphy amended days later to clarify that the Department of Homeland Security may not shrink from the injunction by ceding control of the noncitizens to the Department of Defense.
