The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is accusing an “activist” federal judge in Boston of trying to force the United States to bring back eight “uniquely barbaric monsters” after they were deported to South Sudan earlier this week.
In what a DHS spokeswoman called a “deranged” ruling, Judge Brian Murphy, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to give the deported illegal alien criminals more adequate due process, including a “meaningful opportunity to object” to their removals to a foreign country.
DHS conducted a deportation flight Tuesday from Texas to South Sudan to remove what it called “some of the most barbaric, violent individuals” living illegally in the United States.
“No country on earth wanted to accept them because their crimes are so uniquely monstrous and barbaric,” DHS stated on X.
The crimes the deported illegals committed include two first-degree murders, a second-degree murder, a homicide, multiple robberies, larcenies, false impersonation of official, kidnapping, attempted first degree murder with a weapon, assault, battery, trafficking, illegal possession of a firearm, driving under the influence, lascivious Acts with a Child-Victim less than 12 years of age, and first-degree sexual assault involving a victim mentally and physically incapable of resisting.
Wednesday evening, Judge Murphy ruled that the government violated the Court’s Preliminary Injunction and issued a series of orders to remedy the alleged violations.
Murphy ordered DHS to give the violent illegal aliens access to phones and attorneys and grant them a minimum of ten days to raise concerns about the “safety risks” of being deported to a third country. If the convicted criminal illegal is found to have a “reasonable fear,” Murphy said, the government would be required to reopen their immigration proceedings.
Even if they are not able to demonstrate a credible fear, the judge said that the Trump administration would still required to provide a “meaningful opportunity, and a minimum of fifteen days” to reopen their case, potentially dragging legal proceedings on indefinitely.
Murphy also ordered that DHS must provide status reports on each of the individuals every seven days. He gave DHS the option of bringing them back to the U.S. for this process, or handling it long-distance—as long as they maintain custody of them and give them access to phones and attorneys.
In a separate memo, Murphy blasted the Trump administration’s apparent disregard of his initial injunction last month that limited removals of illegals to third countries.
“Giving every credit to Defendants’ account, the non-citizens at issue had fewer than 24 hours’ notice, and zero business hours’ notice, before being put on a plane and sent to a country as to which the U.S. Department of State issues the following warning: ‘Do not travel to South Sudan due to crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict,'” Murphy wrote. “As detailed on the record during today’s hearing, further facts regarding the unavailability of information, the hurried and confused notice that the individuals received, language barriers, and attorney access compound and confirm this Court’s finding that no reasonable interpretation of the Court’s Preliminary Injunction could endorse yesterday’s events.”
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin called the judge’s ruling “deranged” in a statement late Wednesday night.
“These depraved individuals have all had their day in court and been given final deportation orders,” she said in the statement posted on X. “A reminder of who was on this plane: murderers, child rapists, an individual who raped a mentally & physically disabled person. The message this activist judge is sending to victims and their families is we don’t care.”
McLaughlin cited the case of Thongxay Nilakout, a citizen of Laos who was arrested by ICE on January 26, 2025. Nilakout, 46, was convicted of first-degree murder and robbery in 1996 and sentenced to life imprisonment in California. He was paroled in 2023 because he began his incarceration as a juvenile.
McLaughlin complained that a man who “killed an elderly woman execution style and wounded her husband” is “one of the monsters that the activist Massachusetts District Judge is trying to bring back to the United States after he was deported yesterday.”
Attorneys for the deported convicted criminals reportedly argued in court Wednesday that the plane should be returned to the U.S. and the men should be afforded the due process that “can only take place on U.S. soil.”
Trina Realmuto, the executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said that it would be a “legal and logistical nightmare” for the criminal illegals to get access to counsel and to obtain the information they need to challenge DHS from Sudan.
“I have some serious confidentiality, privacy concerns about where this reasonable fear interview is going to take place,” she said. “Who is going to conduct this reasonable fear interview, but most importantly, how are they going to have access to counsel, which they are entitled to have in order to discuss the reasonable fear process? How are they going to investigate and learn about the conditions in South Sudan? How are they going to present evidence that they have a reasonable fear.”
McLaughlin voiced a much different point of view during a press briefing Wednesday morning.
“A local judge in Massachusetts is trying to force the United States to bring back these uniquely barbaric monsters who present a clear and present threat to the safety of the American people and American victims,” she said. “While we are fully compliant with the law and court orders, it is absolutely absurd for a District judge to try to dictate foreign policy and the national security of the United States of America.”
McLaughlin added that the contrast between the administration and the Democrat lawfare is “brutally stark.”
“President Trump and Secretary Noem are working every single day to get these vicious criminals off of American streets and activist judges are on the other side fighting to get them back onto United States soil,” she said.