July 16 (UPI) — The Trump administration has deported five migrants convicted of violent crimes to the African nation of Eswatini, the Department of Homeland Security said.
The migrants from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Cuba and Yemen arrived in the small Southeast African nation Tuesday night, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said on social media, announcing that their flight had landed.
“This flight took individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them,” she said in a statement, adding that it was thanks to President Donald Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem that “they are off of American soil.”
The announcement marks the second instance of the Trump administration shipping migrants to a third country since the Supreme Court earlier this month said it could deport eight migrants to South Sudan.
The conservative-leaning Supreme Court ruling ended litigation over the legality of the United States deporting noncitizens to a third country other than their own without permitting them the opportunity to argue they would be tortured or receive degrading treatment in the new country.
The justices did not give a detailed explanation for their reasoning, though liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented, arguing the Supreme Court’s refusal to justify its decision “is indefensible.”
“Today’s order clarifies only one thing: Other litigants must follow the rules, but the administration has the Supreme Court on speed dial,” she wrote.
It was not clear when the United States made a deal with Eswatini to accept its deported migrants.
The majority of those who landed in Eswatini late Tuesday had been convicted of murder, among other charges. One migrant was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment for the sexual abuse of a minor.
The announcement comes amid reports that a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo states that “effective immediately” the Trump administration may deport migrants to a third country with as little as six hours’ notice as long as the receiving country has given the United States assurances that the deportee “will not be persecuted or tortured.”