Trump administration accuses district judge of defying Supreme Court in case of migrants held in Djibouti

President Donald Trump’s administration urged the Supreme Court on Tuesday to allow it to immediately deport a group of migrants currently being held on a US military base in Djibouti to South Sudan, saying the judge handling the case defied the high court.

President Donald Trump’s administration urged the Supreme Court on Tuesday to allow it to immediately deport a group of migrants currently being held on a US military base in Djibouti to South Sudan, saying the judge handling the case defied the high court. The unusual motion came hours after a divided Supreme Court allowed the administration to resume deporting migrants to countries other than their homeland, including places like South Sudan, with minimal notice. Later Monday, a district court judge in Massachusetts ruled that the order didn’t apply to the specific migrants in Djibouti. Describing the lower court’s order as “untenable,” the Trump administration accused US District Judge Brian Murphy of being in “defiance” of the Supreme Court’s order and suggested in its brief on Tuesday that the justices remove him from the case. “The district court’s ruling of last night is indefensible,” the Department of Justice told the Supreme Court. “The district court’s ruling of last night is a lawless act of defiance that, once again, disrupts sensitive diplomatic relations and slams the brakes on the executive’s lawful efforts to effectuate third-country removals,” the administration said. As is often the case on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket, the order Monday afternoon provided little detail about the implications of the decision. The Trump administration had asked the justices to put on hold an order from Murphy, which found that the government’s efforts to deport migrants to third-party countries without additional due process “unquestionably” violated constitutional protections.