Trump Administration Expels Eight Men to War-Torn "Third Country" South Sudan

[Passages]

The Supreme Court is helping the Trump administration expand its deportation regime — and restrict immigrants’ rights to object for fear of torture.


Nick Turse
July 7 2025, 9:34 a.m.

The Trump administration succeeded in its quest to deport the eight men it imprisoned on a U.S. military base in Djibouti to violence-plagued South Sudan on Saturday, expanding its globe-spanning effort to banish immigrants to so-called third countries.

“After weeks of delays by activist judges that put our law enforcement in danger, ICE deported these 8 barbaric criminals [sic] illegal aliens to South Sudan,” Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told The Intercept in an email. The Trump administration reveled in a Thursday 7-2 Supreme Court decision granting its request to expel the men from Camp Lemonnier to the restive East African nation.

Their deportation marked a dramatic win for the Trump administration’s efforts to exile immigrants to countries other than the ones they hail from and which are notorious for violence and human rights violations.

More than a decade of intermittent political turmoil and outright civil war has left South Sudan politically unstable and ravaged by violence. Recent clashes between armed groups drove 165,000 people to flee their homes in three months, according to a June United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees report. The country is subject to a U.N. warning about the potential for full-scale civil war and a U.S. State Department “Level 4: Do Not Travel” advisory.

https://theintercept.com/2025/07/07/third-country-deportation-south-sudan-trump/