US deports 8 immigrants to conflict-torn South Sudan after legal fight
Deportation follows a US Supreme Court ruling favouring the Trump administration
Eight men deported from the United States in May and held under guard for weeks at an American military base in the African nation of Djibouti while their legal challenges played out in court have now reached the Trump administration’s intended destination, war-torn South Sudan, a country the State Department advises against travel to due to “crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict”.
The immigrants from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and South Sudan arrived in South Sudan on Friday after a federal judge cleared the way for the Trump administration to relocate them in a case that had gone to the Supreme Court, which had permitted their removal from the US.
Administration officials said the men had been convicted of violent crimes in the United States.
“This was a win for the rule of law, safety and security of the American people,” said Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin in a statement on Saturday announcing the men’s arrival in South Sudan, a chaotic country in danger once more of collapsing into civil war.
The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for the transfer of the men who had been put on a flight in May bound for South Sudan.
That meant that the South Sudan transfer could be completed after the flight was detoured to a base in Djibouti, where the men were held in a converted shipping container.