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The deportees are stuck in Djibouti amid a legal fight over their expulsions. A lawyer for some of the men said she was concerned for their health and welfare.
May 22, 2025, 7:02 p.m. ET
President Trump on Thursday confirmed that a group of migrants from countries including Vietnam, Cuba and Mexico were stuck in the East African nation of Djibouti on their way to being deported to South Sudan, a location U.S. officials had previously said in court was classified.
The revelation, made by the president in a social media post, came as the legal fate of the eight men remained uncertain and their exact whereabouts unknown. A lawyer for some of the migrants said she was concerned for their welfare.
In a sharp rebuke of the government Wednesday, a federal judge in Boston found the deportation of the men from Texas a day earlier violated an order he issued last month requiring that immigrants receive reasonable notice before being deported to a country not their own.
Lawyers for some of the migrants, who had rushed to Federal District Court in Boston to challenge their deportations, said they had been told they were headed to South Sudan, a country teetering on the brink of civil war.
Trump administration officials refused to confirm in open court where the men were being sent, describing the information at one point as “classified” and later as “sensitive.” On Wednesday morning, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, also declined to tell reporters the location of the plane or where it was headed, citing “operational security.”
Amid the legal wrangling, the flight carrying the migrants landed in Djibouti, as The New York Times previously reported. It remained unclear where they were being held and under what conditions.
