Washington: A group of migrants in Texas, told they were being deported to Libya, were held for hours on a military airfield tarmac without clear information about their fate, according to an attorney representing one of the individuals involved.
Tin Thanh Nguyen, a lawyer for one of the migrants, said his client—a Vietnamese construction worker based in Los Angeles—was among those abruptly awakened in the early morning hours and transported from the Pearsall immigration detention center to a military airfield. A military aircraft was reportedly on standby for their departure.
“They said, ‘We’re deporting you to Libya,’ even though he hadn’t signed the form, he didn’t know what the form was,” Nguyen told Reuters.
The migrants remained on the tarmac for several hours before being returned to the detention facility around midday, Nguyen said. As of Thursday, no deportations had occurred.
The Department of Homeland Security, the Pentagon, and the State Department did not respond to requests for comment.
Reuters previously reported that the Trump administration was preparing to deport migrants to Libya—a development that would mark a significant escalation in its hardline immigration policy, already subject to ongoing legal scrutiny. Officials had said earlier in the week that the U.S. military might transport the migrants to the North African country as early as Wednesday, but emphasized that plans were subject to change.
A U.S. official later confirmed to Reuters that no flight had taken off. By Friday, it remained uncertain whether the administration still intended to proceed with the deportations.
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In a legal blow to the administration’s efforts, a federal judge in Boston ruled Wednesday that deporting non-Libyan migrants to Libya without appropriate screenings for potential persecution or torture would constitute a clear violation of an existing court order. The ruling followed an emergency motion filed by lawyers pursuing a class action lawsuit on behalf of several migrants. The filing was submitted shortly after the news broke about the potential deportation flights.
Placed in Solitary Confinement
Nguyen declined to reveal his client’s identity but stated that the man was asked on Monday to sign a document consenting to deportation to Libya. Given his limited proficiency in English, the client refused to sign the document and was subsequently placed in solitary confinement, shackled alongside four or five other detainees.
According to Nguyen, the man was not given an opportunity to express any fear about being returned to Libya—an omission that violates both federal immigration law and the judge’s recent order.
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Nguyen said his client has resided in the United States since the 1990s and was taken into custody earlier this year by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during a routine check-in.
Vietnam has a history of declining to accept certain deportees and processes deportation documents slowly, Nguyen explained, making it difficult for U.S. authorities to send individuals back to the Southeast Asian nation.
