U.S. deports men from Asia and Latin America with criminal records to South Sudan after legal saga

The Trump administration said it deported a group of eight men convicted of serious crimes in the United States to the conflict-ridden African country of South Sudan, following a weeks-long legal saga that had kept the deportees in a military base in Djibouti for weeks.

Assistant Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the deportation flight carrying the deportees landed in South Sudan just before midnight EST on Friday. A photo provided by the department showed the deportees, with their hands and feet shackled, sitting inside an aircraft, guarded by U.S. service members.

The deportations to South Sudan — a country plagued by armed conflict and political instability that the U.S. government warns Americans not to visit — mark an unprecedented new frontier in President Trump's government-wide crackdown on illegal immigration.