The South Sudan Flights: Removal as Operational Defiance
- Citation
- Phan v. DHS, No. 1:25-cv-11910 (D. Mass.) (voluntarily dismissed July 8, 2025); D.V.D. PI enforcement order (D. Mass. May 21, 2025)
- Court
- U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts
- Statute
- 5 U.S.C. § 705; INA § 241(b); D.V.D. preliminary injunction
- Holding
- Judge Murphy found DHS “unquestionably” violated the PI; ordered remedial CAT screening at Camp Lemonnier. After SCOTUS June 23 stay (clarified July 3), removals to South Sudan proceeded.
The South Sudan flights are a case study in the operational dynamics of the third-country removal docket. The men placed on the May 19, 2025 flight included nationals of Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Pakistan, South Korea, and Vietnam, plus one South Sudanese national. Most had no connection to South Sudan. None received the procedural protections the D.V.D. preliminary injunction had ordered. ICE’s notice, served at 5:45 PM on May 19, told them only that they would be removed; the flight took off at 9:35 AM the next morning.
The Murphy enforcement order
On May 21, 2025, after emergency motion by class counsel, Judge Brian Murphy of the District of Massachusetts ruled that DHS had “unquestionably” violated the preliminary injunction. The flight, then in international airspace, was diverted to Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, the U.S. military base in the Horn of Africa. The men were held there for approximately six weeks while CAT screening proceeded under the procedures the PI required.
The conditions at Camp Lemonnier were the subject of intense reporting at the time. The men were held in a hangar; access to counsel was intermittent; medical care was limited. ICE took the position that the Djibouti detention was lawful as a matter of effectuating the (now-paused) removal. Class counsel disagreed.
The June 23 stay and July 4 removal
On June 23, 2025, the Supreme Court entered the shadow-docket stay discussed in our companion piece on DHS v. D.V.D.. On July 3, the Court clarified that the stay reached the Djibouti detainees specifically. On July 4, 2025, U.S. Independence Day, ICE flew the men from Djibouti to Juba.
“The Government’s notice, two pages in English, told them they would be removed. It did not tell them where, or to whom, or with what consequence.”
What happened in South Sudan
South Sudanese authorities took the men into custody upon arrival and held them in a guarded compound. As of January 2026, per the Third Country Deportation Watch project, six of the eight remained in some form of detention. None had been granted any status by the Government of South Sudan. The companion Phan v. DHS habeas action filed in the District of Massachusetts was voluntarily dismissed on July 8, 2025 after removals were complete; the underlying claims were captured in the ongoing D.V.D. class proceedings.
Significance
The South Sudan flights crystallize three features of the post-2025 third-country removal regime. First, the operational gap between district-court orders and executive-branch compliance: the May 19 flight occurred in clear violation of an existing PI, and the agency’s response was not retreat but appellate escalation. Second, the practical reach of the shadow docket: a stay entered without opinion produced removals that could not be undone. Third, the limits of habeas as a remedy after the fact: the men removed to South Sudan have, with few exceptions, had no realistic path to undo their removal even if the underlying policy is ultimately invalidated on the merits.
For habeas counsel, the South Sudan flights are now treated as the operational case study against which procedural protection rules are measured. Notice in the detainee’s language; notice to counsel; meaningful opportunity to raise CAT fear; non-surprise scheduling. These minima exist as black-letter requirements precisely because they were violated here.
Filed under Third-Country Removal. Published May 19 – July 4, 2025.