SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
By Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali and Humeyra Pamuk
Washington: A US judge said any effort by the Trump administration to deport migrants to Libya would clearly violate a prior court order barring officials from swiftly deporting migrants to countries other than their own without first weighing whether they risk persecution or torture if sent there.
District Judge Brian Murphy issued a new order restricting their removal on Wednesday (Thursday AEST) following reports the Trump administration could deport people as soon as this week – despite previous US condemnation of Libya’s harsh treatment of detainees.
Donald Trump has brought in a series of tough measures aimed at curbing illegal immigration.Credit: Bloomberg
Reuters could not determine how many migrants would be sent to Libya or the nationalities of those the administration was eyeing for deportation, including whether any were Libyan nationals. The relatives of one Mexican national said he had been instructed to sign a document allowing for his deportation to the African nation.
Immigration rights advocates said in court filings that individuals potentially subject to deportation to Libya also included Filipino, Laotian and Vietnamese migrants.
When asked about the planned deportations, US President Donald Trump said he did not know whether they were happening. “You’ll have to ask Homeland Security,” he said in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
The Pentagon referred queries to the White House. The White House and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment. A State Department spokesperson said: “We do not discuss the details of our diplomatic communications with other governments.”
In March, Trump ordered the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a prison in El Salvador.Credit: El Salvador PPO via AP
Libya’s Government of National Unity said on Wednesday it rejected the use of Libyan territory as a destination for deporting migrants without its knowledge or consent. It also said there was no coordination with the United States regarding the transfer of migrants.
Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army, which controls eastern Libya, also rejected the idea, saying in a statement that taking in migrants deported from the US “violates the sovereignty of the homeland.”
After news broke of the potential flight to Libya, lawyers for a group of migrants pursuing a class action lawsuit made an emergency request that Murphy block migrants from being deported to Libya or any country en route, including Saudi Arabia, without ensuring their due process rights were met.
Murphy, who was appointed by former president Joe Biden, wrote: “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.”
The administration had argued that Murphy’s prior order only applied to DHS and not the Department of Defence, which US officials said would be involved in flying migrants to Libya.
Murphy said on Wednesday that DHS could not “evade” his order by transferring responsibility to another agency.
Trump, who made immigration a major issue during his election campaign, has launched aggressive enforcement action since taking office, surging troops to the southern border and pledging to deport millions of immigrants in the US illegally.
As of Monday, the Trump administration had deported 152,000 people, according to DHS.
The administration has tried to encourage migrants to leave voluntarily by threatening steep fines, trying to strip away legal status and deporting migrants to notorious prisons in Guantanamo Bay and El Salvador.
Family members of a Mexican national said they feared he could be deported from the US to Libya after he called them on Tuesday from immigration detention in Texas, saying he had been told to sign a document allowing for his deportation to the African nation.
Valentin Yah, 39, said several others of various nationalities at the immigration detention centre in Pearsall, Texas, had been told to sign the same document, according to two of his family members who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation
They said he was pleading with immigration officials to be sent to Mexico, about 160 kilometres from where he was detained.
Yah, an Indigenous Mexican from Yucatan, has a conviction for sexual abuse and served about 15 years in prison in the US before being detained by immigration authorities, records show. He was ordered deported by an immigration judge in 2009, records show.
In its annual human rights report last year before Trump took office in January, the US State Department criticised Libya’s “harsh and life-threatening prison conditions.” The department advises US citizens against visiting due to “crime, civil unrest, kidnapping and armed conflict.”
Libya has had little peace since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising, and it split in 2014 between eastern and western factions, with rival administrations governing in each area. Major fighting ended with a truce in 2020, but the underlying political dispute remains and there are sporadic clashes.
