The U.S deports a dozen Asians to South Sudan – lawyers claim

An email from a detention officer revealed that a Burmese national, simply referred to as “N.M.,” was “removed…to South Sudan.”

The move has been met with criticism as some lawyers contend that it goes against a previous ruling, relating to an emergency motion on May 7 following news of impending deportations to Saudi Arabia and Libya.

Immigration attorneys mentioned this in a petition they filed with the court, requesting that it intervene and return the migrants.

The emergency filing to the federal district court in Massachusetts mentioned that the move also violated an order granted by U.S. District Court Judge Brian Murphy, who prohibited the Trump administration from deporting migrants to third countries without providing them with essential due process rights.

Alongside 10 other migrants, a Vietnamese national identified as ‘T.T.P.’ seemed to have endured “the same fate” N.M did, as reported by France 24.

As reported by the media, immigration officers were looking to deport N.M. and others to Saudi Arabia and Libya.

The attorneys maintained that the deportation is a violation of an earlier order that they had made on the 7th of May.

The court had sided with plaintiffs, and “the men were ultimately transported back to an immigration detention center after remaining on a bus on the base’s tarmac for three or four hours,” the filing said.

A botched cease-fire in South Sudan fell apart last week, per the complaint, as the lawyers emphasized that the migrants were being flown “into a country that is now returning to full-blown and catastrophic civil war.”

The attorneys relayed to a federal judge that any migrant sent to South Sudan “faces a strong likelihood of irreparable harm,” considering accounts of pervasive war, brutality, and human rights abuses in the East African country.

The United States has not officially acknowledged an attempt to deport non-South Sudanese migrants to that nation. Representatives from the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to calls for comment.

After decades of civil violence, South Sudan seceded from Sudan on July 9, 2011, becoming the world’s youngest nation in the world.

The separation was expected to bring peace and prosperity to the people of the South. However, within two years after gaining independence, the country descended into a horrific internal strife.

The South Sudanese Civil War broke out in December 2013, spurred by a power struggle between President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and his former Vice President, Riek Machar, an ethnic Nuer. Kiir accused Machar of preparing a coup, which he rejected.

This political conflict swiftly turned into ethnic warfare, with troops and militias aligning along ethnic lines.

Although the conflict began as a political rivalry, it rapidly had profound ethnic undertones, particularly between the Dinka and Nuer groups.

Both government and opposition troops committed heinous atrocities against civilians, including killings, rape, and forced relocation.

The conflict caused one of the biggest humanitarian disasters in the world.

Although the number varies, some estimates show that more than 400,000 individuals have been killed in the war.

Millions of people have been displaced, including nearly 2.3 million refugees fleeing to neighboring countries and an additional 1.8 million internally displaced.

Famine-like circumstances and economic collapse have left the bulk of the people reliant on humanitarian assistance.