by The Supreme Court’s emergency intervention ended a six-week legal struggle Friday when a plane carrying eight men who had been detained for weeks on a U.S. military facility in Djibouti touched down in South Sudan just before midnight.
Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said roughly 8:30 p.m. Eastern time was when the U.S. military aircraft took off. The males seemed to be on the plane, handcuffed and shackled at the ankles, surrounded by uniformed personnel, according to a photo released by Homeland Security.
It is yet unknown if the men have been arrested by the South Sudanese administration in Juba or what will happen to them in the end. The State Department has advised against traveling to the 13-year-old nation, which is on the verge of civil war, due to the dangers of armed conflict, crime, and kidnapping. South Sudan will grant the men immigration status, allowing them to stay there at least temporarily, according to a diplomatic note delivered by a Justice Department attorney in court on Friday.
On a U.S. military outpost in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa, the eight prisoners had been shackled for weeks inside a cargo container with air conditioning. The men traveled from Vietnam, Mexico, Laos, Cuba, and Myanmar before arriving in the United States. Only one comes from the violent nation of South Sudan. Although several had completed or were about to complete their terms, all had been found guilty of heinous crimes committed in the United States.
How much due process the government must give migrants before sending them to so-called third countries—places other than their home nations where they may be subject to torture—was at the center of the protracted legal struggle. Deportations to locations where migrants’ lives or freedom would be in danger are restricted by federal law. International law upholds the idea that migrants shouldn’t be sent to areas where they could face persecution or torture.
The Supreme Court agreed that the Trump administration may send the soldiers to South Sudan on two separate occasions.
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