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Nearly a dozen ICE officials and a group of migrants deported to South Sudan by the Trump administration are currently being housed in a converted shipping container and face grave dangers to their physical health, according to a new court filing.
The filing, submitted by senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official Mellisa Harper, cites a combination of blistering-high heat conditions, exposure to malaria and “imminent danger” of rocket attacks from terrorist groups in Yemen as threats to both the migrants and ICE officials. It comes after U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy ordered the Trump administration to keep in U.S. custody a group of eight migrants who were deported to South Sudan without due process or the ability to challenge their removals to a third country.
He ordered they remain in U.S. custody until each could be given a “reasonable fear interview,” or a chance to explain to U.S. officials any fear of persecution or torture, should they be released.
But the filing makes clear that the migrants, and ICE officials, face dangers in the meantime.
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According to Harper, ICE officials were not given anti-malaria medication prior to traveling to Djibouti – subjecting them to unknown levels of disease exposure in a war-torn region, where there has been an uptick in deadly clashes over resource scarcity, including cattle and access to potable water. The president of the country declared a state of emergency in certain parts of South Sudan just days ago.
And even within the confines of the U.S. base, there are significant risks.
According to ICE’s submission, the migrants are being housed in a converted Conex shipping container at the U.S. military base in Djibouti, the only permanent military base the U.S. currently operates in Africa. Since their arrival, daily temperatures there have exceeded 100 degrees – searing conditions that they said make detention “of any length,” especially longer term.
Nearby burn pits used by Djibouti to burn off trash and human waste form a giant “smog cloud” that hangs over the base for much of the day, exposing the group to unknown hazardous materials burned off under breezeless, blistering hot skies.
Some ICE officers have started to sleep in N-95 masks for additional protection, Harper noted.
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“Within 72 hours of landing in Djibouti, the officers and detainees began to feel ill,” Harper noted, with symptoms such as coughing, difficulty breathing, and achy joints – though they lack the testing or medication necessary for treatment.
Other, more imminent risks also remain.
Upon arrival, ICE officials were notified by Defense Department officials of the “imminent danger” of rocket attacks from terrorist groups in Yemen, Harper noted, though ICE officers lack body armor or other gear appropriate in the case of an attack.
The new filing could add pressure on the Trump administration to relocate the detainees and ICE officials in question.
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Murphy had stated in a previous order that migrants deported to South Sudan need not be held there, in a country where recent infighting and deadly conflict have displaced more than 150,000 people this year alone.
He said then that the government had mischaracterized his order, “while at the same time manufacturing the very chaos they decry.”
His order requires the Trump administration to keep the six deported migrants in South Sudan under the custody of U.S. officials for a length of time needed to carry out the so-called “reasonable fear interviews,” and make a determination over whether the migrants’ concerns are adequate.
“The court never said that defendants had to convert their foreign military base into an immigration facility,” Murphy wrote in that order.
“It only left that as an option, again, at defendants’ request,” he said then.
It is unclear whether the government has plans to relocate the group.
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