CNN
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A countdown is on for a plane of eight migrant detainees to be flown from a US Naval base in Djibouti to the war-torn country of South Sudan Friday night. Lawyers for the migrants are rushing to a federal court in Massachusetts Friday afternoon to try to block the plane from taking off.
So far Friday, the migrants got a brief reprieve from Judge Randolph Moss in the DC District Court. Moss held an emergency hearing before deciding the case should be moved to Massachusetts. He has ordered the Trump administration not to move the migrants until 4:30 p.m. ET and has told the migrants’ lawyers they must move fast to try to get a judge to intervene in Massachusetts.
The plane in Djibouti is scheduled to take off at 7:00 p.m. ET, the Trump administration said in court Friday.
“It seems self-evident the US government can’t take human beings and send them to a place where their physical well-being is at risk,” such as in South Sudan, either to punish them or to warn other possible migrants to the US of the consequences of illegal immigration, Moss said at the hearing.
The plaintiffs are arguing they will face torture if they are sent to South Sudan by the US and are being deprived of their constitutional rights because the Trump administration is trying to unfairly hurt them with the deportation.
In explaining the very short stay he issued Friday afternoon, Moss said he didn’t believe courts should issue administrative stays that last longer than is necessary.
The court drama playing out on the Independence Day holiday in the US comes after the Supreme Court ruled Thursday in the administration’s favor that the eight migrants are among those whom the government could deport to a third-party country like South Sudan.
