A group of 11 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and eight migrant detainees are stuck in a converted shipping container in Djibouti after a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from deporting immigrants to third-party countries without due process.
The group’s plight was described Thursday in a filing in U.S. District Court, where Melissa Harper, a senior ICE official overseeing deportations, said they’re being housed in a converted shipping container on the U.S. Navy base in Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti.
“This has been identified as the only viable place to house the aliens,” Harper said.
According to Harper, the daily temperature outside exceeds 100 degrees Fahrenheit. At night, Djibouti ignites burn pits near the base to dispose of trash and human waste, creating a lingering smog cloud.
Defense officials also warned the group upon their arrival “of imminent danger of rocket attacks” from terrorist groups in nearby Yemen.
Harper said members of the group have fallen ill and complained about a lack of medical equipment, including testing for what agents described as upper respiratory infections, all developed within 72 hours of landing.
The U.S. Department of Defense, which operates the base, might contest that description, having reportedly supplied the agents with Augmentin (an antibiotic), azithromycin (another antibiotic), doxycycline (a third antibiotic), prednisone (steroid), inhalers, Zyrtec (treats allergies), Tylenol (pain and fever reliever), Motrin (pain reliever), Benadryl, Mucinex, Sudafed, nasal spray and eye drops.
While showers are available to both the ICE agents and the migrants, Harper complained they’re only available every other day.
The three ICE officers originally assigned to the deportation flight were replaced May 27 with an expanded team of 11 officers and two medical support staffers, who Harper said also will soon be swapped out for a fresh team.
That means the only members of the group consistently being subjected to the inhospitable conditions are the migrants.
Trina Realmuto, an attorney for the deportees, told The Washington Post they’re increasingly concerned about the conditions they’re being held in, especially if they’re being shackled.
The detainees, who hail from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar and Vietnam, were quietly flown out of the country more than two weeks ago, violating the orders of a federal judge barring the government from deporting people to a third-party country — a nation other than the U.S. or their nation of origin — without first giving them a meaningful chance to contest it.
Lawyers for the migrants said in court documents that they were given just hours before they were deported, instead of 15 days as directed by the judge.
As a result, the flight, originally bound for South Sudan, instead got stuck in Djibouti.
It’s unclear if the Department of Homeland Security attempted to deport the migrants to their countries of origin before settling on South Sudan. Federal law prohibits deporting migrants to countries that are unsafe or where they could be persecuted.
It’s also unclear why ICE would continue to subject the group to inhospitable conditions when they could simply return to the United States for the requisite hearings. DHS didn’t respond to a question to that effect.
Instead, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughin lambasted U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy on social media, accusing Murphy of “putting the lives of our ICE law enforcement in danger by stranding them in Djibouti without proper resources, lack of medical care, and terrorists who hate Americans running rampant.
“Our @ICEgov officers were only supposed to transport for removal 8 *convicted criminals* with *final deportation orders* who were so monstrous and barbaric that no other country would take them. This is reprehensible and, quite frankly, pathological.”
Read Harper’s sworn declaration, below: