About that human trafficking….
TPM picked up this story last night:
DHS is violating a court order to remove a group of detainees to South Sudan, lawyers told a federal judge on Tuesday.
Around one dozen people — including a person with a removal order to Myanmar and a person with a removal order to Vietnam — were loaded onto planes and sent to South Sudan on Tuesday, court filings say. The deportations are either currently in progress or have already taken place, lawyers for the group wrote.
The ruling that DHS is allegedly violating in this case is clear. Last month, U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy for the District of Massachusetts ordered DHS to give individuals set to be removed to a country that is not their own written notice in a language they understand, and to offer them the chance to contest their removal. That included providing the detainees a window of at least 15 days in which they could challenge DHS’ efforts to remove them to a third country.
If I were Murphy, I might be pissed. I might be wondering whom to throw in jail for violating my court order. I mean, Trump’s acting U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, Alina Habba — and we do mean acting — is arresting members of Congress and a mayor. Fair is fair.
So will the Trump administration argue that deporting people to South Sudan comports with court orders because it’s not Libya? Less than two weeks ago, Reuters reported that DHS “was poised to deport immigrants held in the US to Libya, despite a court order against such a move.” Team MAGA may be reluctant to spend funds responding to disasters on U.S. soil, but Marco Rubio seemingly has enough to explore trafficking human cargo around the Mediterranean and Africa (The Arab Weekly):
The US secretary of state said that he was not aware of Libya being included in the list of countries being approached about the relocation of Palestinians.
The US embassy in Libya had also denied on Sunday a report that the US government was working on a plan to relocate Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya.
Last week, NBC News said the Trump administration is working on a plan to permanently relocate as many as one million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya.
NBC News cited five people with knowledge of the matter, including two people with direct knowledge and a former US official.
“The report of alleged plans to relocate Gazans to Libya is untrue,” the US embassy said on the X platform.
Trump has previously said he would like the United States to take over the Gaza Strip and its Palestinian population resettled elsewhere.
But shipping humans to South Sudan is currently “operative,” as they say in D.C., and possibly Rwanda, Benin, Angola and Eswatini. Murphy previously enjoined the administration from shipping human cargo to Libya and Saudi Arabia.
U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Boston wrote that the Trump administration must not let the migrants being transported to South Sudan out of their custody to ensure that the migrants will be able to be returned to the United States if the court finds that their attempted deportations are unlawful. The order also applies to other migrants being deported “to any third country” — meaning nations where deported migrants are not citizens.
The court, Murphy wrote, would leave “the practicalities of compliance” to the discretion of the defendants, which include the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. Murphy wrote that the defendants must answer several questions during an upcoming hearing scheduled for Wednesday, including the amount of notice each migrant received ahead of their attempted removal to South Sudan and any details about their current whereabouts.
Yeah, Brian, good luck with getting Cosplay Kristi and Bondi Pam Bondi to give you straight answers instead of defiant speeches.
Who’s left to enforce punishment against an administration that at every opportunity gives its middle finger to federal courts?
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