A federal courtroom in Boston lit up with urgency and disbelief on Tuesday, as a judge sounded the alarm over what appeared to be a flagrant violation of his own court order: the deportation of migrants to South Sudan, a country rife with instability and violence.
The moment of reckoning came during a hastily convened virtual hearing, where U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy declared that migrants seemingly had been placed on a flight out of the country in direct contradiction to a standing injunction. He didn’t mince words. “This seems like it may be contempt,” Murphy told the Department of Justice.
Murphy’s order wasn’t vague. Issued in April, it specifically blocked the deportation of migrants to third countries before they had a fair chance to raise fears of torture or persecution—rights embedded in the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment. And yet, lawyers representing the migrants said nearly a dozen people were quietly loaded onto a plane headed for South Sudan.
Among the group: a Vietnamese man previously detained in Texas, whose wife pleaded in an email, “Please help! They cannot be allowed to do this.” Her message detailed the inclusion of others—nationals from Laos, Pakistan, Mexico, and Thailand—all reportedly en route to one of the most volatile nations in the world.
South Sudan is no safe harbor. The U.N. has repeatedly flagged the region as dangerously unstable, with warnings that its fragile post-civil war peace could collapse. Still, Department of Homeland Security officials appeared to greenlight the transfers. One DHS lawyer even noted that the passengers included a convicted murderer and a rapist.
Murphy, appointed under the previous administration, refused to order the plane to turn around midair—but pointedly reminded DHS that they could choose to do exactly that. “If they want to turn the plane around, they can,” he said. In the meantime, he ordered that no migrant covered by the injunction was to be released from U.S. custody, no matter where the aircraft landed.
That wasn’t the only twist. One migrant’s lawyer was told their client was being sent to South Sudan, only to later learn the person had been flown to Myanmar instead. The government offered no clear explanation. “It defies logic,” said Trina Realmuto of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance.
This isn’t the first time Murphy has had to reinforce his orders. After the Pentagon covertly flew four Venezuelan detainees from Guantanamo to El Salvador—sidestepping immigration authority oversight—Murphy warned the administration that similar stunts, such as transferring detainees to Libya under military jurisdiction, would “clearly violate” his ruling.
Meanwhile, in Washington, a separate federal judge has already found probable cause to hold officials in criminal contempt over similar deportation violations. The Supreme Court recently blocked another Trump-era mass removal plan targeting Venezuelans under a rarely invoked 18th-century wartime law, citing the denial of due process.
As deportation battles heat up in courts across the country, this latest confrontation underscores a growing pattern: court orders issued, government officials circumventing them, and a judiciary increasingly forced to call the executive branch to account.
Murphy has set a further hearing for Wednesday. By then, the fate of those on the flight to South Sudan—and whether contempt charges are filed—may come into sharper focus.
