Judge warns administration against Libya deportations

[struggle4progress]

The stern order followed reports indicating the U.S. was poised to send a planeload of immigrants to the troubled African nation.

Updated
May 7, 2025 at 7:23 p.m. EDTyesterday at 7:23 p.m. EDT

By Maria Sacchetti, Adam Taylor, Marianne LeVine and Dan Lamothe
A federal judge warned the Trump administration Wednesday that it cannot deport immigrants to Libya, Saudi Arabia and any other country where they are not citizens without due process, saying such a move would violate standing court orders intended to shield people from being expelled to countries where they could be harmed or killed.

U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Boston, writing in a swift, stern response to an emergency request from lawyers for a number of immigrants, said he had already barred the Department of Homeland Security from deporting someone to a third country without having given them a chance to challenge the removal and seek protection in the United States.

Lawyers representing immigrants with final deportation orders as part of a class-action lawsuit against the Trump administration had asked Murphy for the emergency order earlier Wednesday, after reports indicated that U.S. immigration officers were preparing to deport people from Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines to Libya. The troubled North African nation is “notorious for its human rights violations, especially with respect to migrant residents,” their emergency motion says ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/05/07/libya-trump-migrants-plane-deportations/

[Blasphemer]

1. Until a judge actually puts someone in jail, it's all meaningless. nt

[GoodRaisin]

4. Sounds like it stopped the plane from leaving.

[bob4460]

2. Who will enforce the court order?

We are currently living in a de facto dictatorship,they are doing what they want and no one is stopping them.I would bet money that they have a plan to stop 2026 election already in the works.

[Qutzupalotl]

3. That it even needs to be said, is a sad statement.

What, we CAN'T just kidnap people and stuff them in foreign gulags? So unfair!