A federal judge told the Trump administration Wednesday that it cannot evade his new rules on carrying out deportations by having them done by the Defense Department rather than Homeland Security.
Judge Brian E. Murphy, a Biden appointee to the court in Massachusetts, said such a warning shouldn’t even be necessary. But he said it was needed after news reports that the administration is planning to use the Pentagon to fly deportees to Libya.
Lawyers for illegal immigrants rushed to Judge Murphy with an emergency request Wednesday to block the flights, saying Libya isn’t a safe country.
Lawyers, in emails filed with the court, said Homeland Security employees were pressuring migrants to sign forms agreeing to accept the deportations.
Judge Murphy had previously ruled deportations that would send illegal immigrants to so-called third countries, or nations where they aren’t citizens, must follow new court-imposed rules. That includes a formal notice in a language the potential deportee can understand, and enough time for a “meaningful opportunity” for the migrant to raise a claim of protection.
Administration officials had said this applied to Homeland Security deportations. But the judge said an April 30 order he issued made clear it applies to all third-country deportations in the case in front of him, no matter who carries them out.
He specifically said that includes the Defense Department.
“If there is any doubt — the court sees none — the allegedly imminent removals, as reported by news agencies and as plaintiffs seek to corroborate with class-member accounts and public information, would clearly violate this court’s order,” he wrote.
The administration last month had informed the judge that it had carried out some deportations via the Defense Department.
That included a registered sex offender and a “chief” and two members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
They were sent to El Salvador on March 31 by the Department of Defense on “a flight with no DHS personnel onboard.”
“DHS did not direct the Department of Defense to remove” the migrants, the government said.
“The Department of Defense is not a defendant in this action,” the Justice Department said in its April 23 filing.
That prompted the judge’s April 30 update, where he said Homeland Security couldn’t cede custody to another agency to circumvent his new rules. His order Wednesday made explicit that he considers the Defense Department covered by his order, even though the lawsuit was only brought against Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the head of a detention facility.
