A federal judge in Boston, Massachusetts, appointed by President Joe Biden, has challenged actions by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) during the administration of former President Donald Trump. The judge is reacting to the deportation of multiple illegal immigrants—each subject to final removal orders and convicted of offenses including murder, rape, child sexual abuse, and robbery.
Recently, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents under DHS removed eight individuals from Mexico, Cuba, Laos, Burma, and Vietnam, transferring them to South Sudan after their countries of origin declined to accept them.
The group included five people found guilty of murder, another for robbery, one for child sexual predation, and another for rape. Additional convictions among the group included assault, and one person had also been found guilty of kidnapping along with murder.
Each of these individuals was under a final order of deportation, with at least one such order originating as far back as 1999. This means they had completed hearings before immigration courts, resulting in official directives for their removal from the U.S.
On Wednesday night, Judge Brian Murphy, a Biden appointee to the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, determined that the Trump administration did not comply with a prior preliminary injunction, which he issued in April. According to Murphy, the administration removed the convicted individuals without providing sufficient opportunity for them to contest their deportations.
Murphy has now directed the Trump administration to either bring the deported individuals from South Sudan back to the United States or allow them to undergo a “reasonable fear interview,” which permits challenges to their removal:
DHS, in its discretion, may elect to provide this process to the six individuals either within the United States—should it choose to return them to the United States—or abroad, if at all relevant times DHS retains custody and control over the individuals in conditions commensurate to those the individuals would be housed in were they still in DHS’s custody within the United States. [Emphasis added]
This Order reflects a remedy, in light of the Court’s finding of a violation of its Preliminary Injunction, that has been narrowly tailored in accordance with principles of equity. The Court cautions Defendants that this remedy should not be construed as setting forth a course of conduct that would constitute compliance with the Preliminary Injunction, and the Court is not—in ordering this remedy—making any findings or conclusions that compliance with these processes before deportation would have satisfied the requirements of its Preliminary Injunction in the first instance. [Emphasis added]
