US judge briefly pauses deportation of 8 migrants to South Sudan

WASHINGTON (Reuters): A federal judge briefly halted the Trump administration on Friday from placing eight migrants on a plane destined for conflict-ridden South Sudan, to give the men time to make their argument to a court in Massachusetts.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington issued the order less than 24 hours after the Supreme Court clarified that a federal judge in Boston could no longer require U.S. Department of Homeland Security to keep custody of the men, who the administration has kept for six weeks on a military base in Djibouti rather than bring back to the United States.

The order stops the U.S. government from moving the men until 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time. They were scheduled to be removed to South Sudan on a 7 p.m. flight.

South Sudan has long been dangerous even for locals. The U.S. State Department advises citizens not to travel there due to violent crime and armed conflict. The United Nations has said the African country’s political crisis could reignite a brutal civil war that ended in 2018.

The eight men, who their lawyers said are from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Burma, Sudan and Vietnam, filed a new legal challenge to their deportation late Thursday after the Supreme Court ruled.