By Nate Raymond and Ted Hesson
BOSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A homeland security official said on Wednesday that the United States is seeking to deport eight migrants convicted of serious crimes including homicides but declined to confirm an allegation raised in federal court that they were bound for South Sudan.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy on Tuesday ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to not let a group of migrants being flown to South Sudan to leave the custody of U.S. immigration authorities, after saying they appeared to have been deported in violation of a court order.
The eight men are from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and South Sudan, Homeland Security officials said at a press conference, and were convicted of murder, armed robbery and other serious crimes.
“We conducted a deportation flight from Texas to remove some of the most barbaric, violent individuals illegally in the United States,” Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told reporters before the start of a court hearing over the issue. “These are the monsters that the district judge is trying to protect.”
Trump took office in January pledging to deport millions of immigrants who are in the United States illegally. His administration has sought to send harder-to-deport migrants to “third countries” that are not their home country. The effort prompted a legal challenge by immigrant advocates who said migrants were not being adequately screened for possible persecution in those countries.
Murphy, a Boston-based judge appointed by former President Joe Biden, issued a preliminary injunction on April 18 designed to ensure that any migrants being sent a third country were provided due process under the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment and a “meaningful opportunity” to raise any fears for their safety.
The judge held an emergency hearing on Tuesday after advocates said it appeared a group of migrants was being deported to South Sudan in violation of his order. At the hearing, Murphy ordered DHS to keep the migrants in federal custody.
McLaughlin on Wednesday declined to identify where the migrants were being held, saying it could jeopardize operational security. McLaughlin said the administration was acting lawfully and had given “plenty of prior notice” to the migrants and their attorneys about their deportation.
“It is absolutely absurd for a district judge to try to dictate the foreign policy and national security of the United States,” McLaughlin said.
Wednesday’s hearing before Murphy began in the late morning.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston and Ted Hesson in Washington; Additional reporting by Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Will Dunham)
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