Lawyers battle over Trump admin deporting immigrants to war-torn South Sudan

For the second time in less than two weeks, immigration lawyers have gone to federal court to try and stop the Trump administration from deporting a small group of immigrants from the United States to a war-torn country not their own.

Immigration attorneys told the court that at least two of their clients, from Myanmar and Vietnam, were deported Tuesday morning to South Sudan in violation of a court order, and they demanded their return.

“The Court should further restrain all flights carrying class members to South Sudan or any other third country,” the attorneys said. 

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and NBC News was not able to independently verify that a deportation flight to South Sudan had occurred.  

A State Department travel advisory warns Americans not to go to South Sudan “due to crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict” and notes that in March, because of the situation there, the department “ordered the departure of non-emergency U.S. government employees from South Sudan.”

Both of the immigrants alleged to have been sent to South Sudan on Tuesday were the subjects of final removal orders allowing the government to deport them to their countries of origin, according to court filings.  

In their filing, the attorneys included an email from the wife of a Vietnamese immigrant who said she believed her husband and at least 10 other people were deported to South Sudan on Tuesday morning. She said the immigrants had refused to sign forms facilitating their deportations to a country not their own.

The woman, whose name was redacted in the filing, wrote to her husband’s attorneys, “The order of removal signed by a judge is to deport my husband back to his country of origin, Vietnam, not to any other third country.”

The Trump administration had tried to send a group of immigrants to Libya this month. The immigrants were from countries like the Philippines, Vietnam and Laos, according to an emergency motion their lawyers filed at the time. That flight was stopped after a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order.

The judge said the immigrants needed to be given notice and the chance to raise concerns about possible torture or persecution. The attempt to stop or reverse the deportations to South Sudan is before the same judge.

The immigration attorneys believe at least one of the people the Trump administration had tried to send to Libya was sent to South Sudan. 

Efforts to reach the South Sudanese government for comment were not successful.