A federal judge in Massachusetts on Wednesday that the Department of National Security of President Donald Trump violated an court order this week when eight migrants flew to a country from which they do not come.

The administration has so far refused to say where the men are currently, but the lawyers say they were told that they were going to South Sudan.

The United States District Judge Brian Murphy had issued an order in April, which prohibits the government from deporting people to an external country, a nation other than the United States or its nation of origin, without giving them a significant opportunity to dispute it. Men are native to countries such as Vietnam and Myanmar.

The lawyers of the men said in judicial documents that they were given only a few hours before they were deported instead of 15 days as indicated by the judge.

“The actions of the department in this case are undoubtedly violators of the order of this court,” Murphy said at the hearing, according to several points of sale. He left the question of the possible consequences for another day.

“According to what I have learned, I don’t see how someone could say that these people had a significant opportunity to object,” said the judge, according to NPR.

At an emergency audience on Tuesday night, Murphy had ordered the Trump administration to keep the custody of men, so that they could be returned to the United States more easily if it governs that their removal was illegal.

Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs of DHS, Tricia McLaughlin, flanked by the deputy director of the application of immigration and customs of the United States, Madison Sheahan, on the left, and interim director of the application of immigration and customs of the US. (Photo AP/José Luis Magana)
Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs of DHS, Tricia McLaughlin, flanked by the deputy director of the application of immigration and customs of the United States, Madison Sheahan, on the left, and interim director of the application of immigration and customs of the US. (Photo AP/José Luis Magana)

Via News

The National Security Assistant Secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, told journalists on the early Wednesday that people were “exceptionally barbatic monsters that have a clear and present threat to the security of the US people and American victims.”

“These are the monsters that the district judge is trying to protect,” McLaughlin said, pointing to a screen with photos of each man. She said they had been convicted of crimes, including murder.

McLaughlin also echoed the position of the Trump administration on the Federal Judiciary, which suggests that deportation was equivalent to a foreign policy decision and that individual federal judges do not have the power to tell the president how to carry out foreign policy. The Constitution, however, makes it clear that people are entitled to due process, even if they have been accused of atrocious crimes.

The Trump administration has been locked in judicial battles since it chose to fly around 260 mostly Venezuelan migrants to a prison in El Salvador, where they are still retained.

Administration officials have said in the last weeks that have been looking for other places to take deported immigrants from the United States, including places in Africa.

South Sudan is notoriously unstable and currently staggers on the edge of another civil war. It is on the “not travel” list of the US government, and the State Department advises people to travel to the country to write a will before going.