A group of 11 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and eight migrant detainees are being held in a converted shipping container in Djibouti after a federal judge barred the Trump administration from deporting immigrants to third-party countries without due process.
The group’s plight was described Thursday in a filing in U.S. District Court, where Melissa Harper, a senior ICE official in charge of deportations, stated that they are being housed in a converted shipping container at the US Navy base in Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti.
“This has been identified as the only viable place to house the aliens,” Harper informed the crowd.
Harper reports that the daily temperature outside exceeds 100 degrees Fahrenheit. At night, Djibouti lights fires near the base to dispose of trash and human waste, resulting in a lingering smog cloud.
Defense officials also warned the group upon their arrival of the “imminent danger of rocket attacks” from terrorist groups in neighboring Yemen.
Harper stated that members of the group became ill and complained about a lack of medical equipment, including testing for what agents described as upper respiratory infections, all within 72 hours of arrival.
The US Department of Defense, which runs the base, may dispute that description, claiming that it provided the agents with Augmentin (an antibiotic), azithromycin (another antibiotic), doxycycline (a third antibiotic), prednisone (steroid), inhalers, Zyrtec (allergy treatment), Tylenol (pain and fever reliever), Motrin (pain reliever), Benadryl, Mucinex, Sudafed, nasal spray, and eye drops.
Showers are available to both ICE agents and migrants, but Harper complained that they are only available every other day.
The three ICE officers originally assigned to the deportation flight were replaced on May 27 by an expanded team of 11 officers and two medical support staffers, Harper said, who will also be replaced soon by a new team.
This means that the migrants are the only members of the group who are consistently subjected to inhospitable conditions.
Trina Realmuto, an attorney for the deportees, told The Washington Post that they are increasingly concerned about the conditions in which they are being held, particularly if they are shackled.
A US military aircraft is seen at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti on January 21, 2024. The camp is the sole permanent US military base in Africa.
The detainees, who are from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, and Vietnam, were quietly flown out of the country more than two weeks ago, violating a federal judge’s orders prohibiting the government from deporting people to a third-party country — a country other than the United States or their country of origin — without first providing them with a meaningful opportunity to contest the decision.
Lawyers for the migrants stated in court documents that they were given only hours before being deported, rather than the 15 days ordered by the judge.
As a result, the flight bound for South Sudan became stuck in Djibouti.
It is unclear whether the Department of Homeland Security attempted to deport the migrants to their countries of origin before deciding on South Sudan. Deporting migrants to dangerous countries or places where they may be persecuted is against federal law.
It is also unclear why ICE would subject the group to such harsh conditions when they could simply return to the United States for the necessary hearings. DHS did not respond to a question of that nature.
Instead, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughin attacked U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy on social media, accusing Murphy of “putting the lives of our ICE law enforcement in danger by stranding them in Djibouti without proper resources, lack of medical care, and terrorists who hate Americans running rampant.”
“Our @ICEgov officers were only supposed to transport for removal 8 *convicted criminals* with *final deportation orders*, who were so monstrous and barbaric that no other country would accept them. This is abhorrent and, quite frankly, pathological.”
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