By Nate Raymond BOSTON (Reuters) -A federal judge said on Tuesday it appeared the Trump administration had violated a court order by deporting several migrants to South Sudan without ensuring they had a meaningful chance to raise any concerns they had for their safety. U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston told a lawyer with the U.S. Department of Justice during a hastily arranged virtual hearing that the potential violation might constitute criminal contempt and he was weighing ordering a plane carrying the migrants to the African nation to turn around. The judge had previously barred the Trump administration from swiftly deporting migrants to countries other than their own without first hearing any concerns that they might be tortured or persecuted if sent there. Lawyers for a group of migrants pursuing a class action lawsuit on behalf of migrants before Murphy said they learned that nearly a dozen migrants held at a detention facility in Texas were flown to South Sudan on Tuesday morning. The migrants included an individual from Myanmar whose lawyer received an email on Monday from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official stating the agency's intent to deport his client to South Sudan. The migrant's lawyers said they learned their client had been flown to South Sudan on Tuesday morning. The spouse of a Vietnamese man who was also held at the Port Isabel Detention Center in Texas emailed his lawyer saying that he and 10 other individuals were believed to have been deported as well, the email filed as an exhibit showed. The group also included nationals of Laos, Thailand, Pakistan and Mexico, the spouse said in the email. "Please help! They cannot be allowed to do this." Lawyers for the migrants said conditions in South Sudan have long been dangerous even for locals. The United Nations has warned that the country's spiraling political crisis could reignite the brutal civil war that ended in 2018. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The department in February instructed immigration officers to review cases of people granted protections against being removed to their home countries to see if they could be re-detained and sent to a third country. Murphy, an appointee of former Democratic President Joe Biden, issued a preliminary injunction on April 18 designed to ensure the migrants were provided due process under the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment. The judge required the administration to provide written notice to migrants before removing them to a country not explicitly listed on their final orders of deportation and a "meaningful opportunity" to raise any fears for their safety if sent there. The judge said any migrants who officials deemed to have not demonstrated a reasonable fear must be given at least 15 days to seek to reopen immigration proceedings to challenge their deportation. Murphy has since further modified his injunction to guard against the possibility of DHS ceding control of migrants to other agencies to carry out rapid deportations, after the administration took the position that the U.S. Department of Defense was not covered by his orders. It made that argument after acknowledging the Defense Department flew four Venezuelans held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to El Salvador after Murphy's initial ruling. The judge said this month if the military similarly flew migrants to Libya, that would "clearly violate" his ruling. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; additional reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Editing by Richard Chang and Stephen Coates)
