ICE Strands Migrants in Djibouti After Failing to Send Them to South Sudan

The Trump administration could have sent eight migrants with deportation orders and the immigration agents who were escorting them to a facility in the U.S. after a federal judge recently barred officials from deporting them to war-torn South Sudan, where they could face persecution or torture.

Instead the administration sent them to U.S. Naval Base Camp Lemonnier in the East African country of Djibouti, where a court filing on Thursday said they face illness, the threat of rocket fire from nearby Yemen, temperatures that soar past 100°F daily, and rancid smoke from nearby burn pits where human waste and trash are incinerated.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, blamed U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy for “stranding” the 13 Immigration and Cu