The United States has confirmed it completed the deportations of eight men to South Sudan, a day after a US judge cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s administration to send them to the violence-hit African country.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on Saturday that the men were deported a day earlier, on US Independence Day on Friday, after they lost a last-minute legal bid to halt their transfer.

The eight detainees – immigrants from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, South Sudan and Vietnam – had been held under guard at a US military base in Djibouti for weeks.

A staffer working at Juba airport in South Sudan told the Reuters news agency that the aircraft carrying the men had arrived on Saturday at 6am local time (04:00 GMT). Their current location is not known.

In a statement, DHS said the eight men had been convicted of a range of crimes, including first-degree murder, robbery, drug trafficking and sexual assault.

Their case had become a flashpoint in ongoing legal battles over the Trump administration’s campaign of mass deportations, including removals to so-called “third countries” where rights groups say deportees face safety risks and possible abuses.

“These third country deportations are wrong, period. And the United States should not be sending people to a literal war zone,” progressive Democratic Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal wrote on social media earlier this week, urging the deportations to be blocked.

The eight men had been held in a converted shipping container in Djibouti since late May, when an earlier deportation flight to South Sudan was halted by the courts over due process concerns.

The US Supreme Court has twice ruled that the Trump administration could deport them to countries outside of their homelands, issuing its latest decision on Thursday (PDF).

That same night, the eight detainees had filed an appeal, arguing that their “impermissibly punitive” deportation to South Sudan would violate the US Constitution, which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment”.

But Judge Brian Murphy of Boston, whose rulings had previously halted efforts to begin deportations to the African country, ruled on Friday evening that the Supreme Court had tied his hands, clearing the way for the deportations to go ahead.

On Saturday, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin hailed the removals as “a win for the rule of law, safety and security of the American people”.

The US State Department advises citizens not to travel to South Sudan due to “crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict”.

The United Nations has also warned that a political crisis embroiling the African country could reignite a brutal civil war that ended in 2018.

Last week, Blaine Bookey, legal director at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, condemned the US’s use of deportations to third countries.

“The administration’s increased use of third country transfers flies in the face of due process rights, the United States’ international legal obligations, and basic principles of human decency,” Bookey said in a statement.

An early goal of the Trump administration, as reflected in Trump’s first executive order, was the repeal of Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act, or ACA), which Trump had long derided—even before announcing his presidential bid—as an expensive failure. Trump pledged during his campaign that he would replace the ACA with a bill that would provide better coverage at lower premiums, and he promised that no one would lose health insurance under his plan. However, the details of the bill, called in the House of Representatives the American Health Care Act (AHCA), proved contentious even within his own party. Because Trump had not worked out a specific plan of his own, he was forced to rely on Republicans in the House to draft a substantive bill that would reduce government involvement in the health insurance market without depriving millions of Americans of the coverage they had acquired under the ACA. The Republicans did not have a detailed alternative in hand, however, resulting in a delay in Trump’s promised repeal of the law.

In early March 2017 House Republicans introduced their plan, which featured elimination of the ACA’s “individual mandate” (the requirement that most Americans obtain health insurance or pay a penalty), a reduction in individual tax credits for the purchase of insurance, cuts in federal Medicaid funding, and nearly $1 trillion in tax cuts over a 10-year period, including $274 billion in cuts for persons earning at least $200,000 a year. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) initially estimated that the plan would reduce the federal deficit by $337 billion over 10 years as compared with current law but would also increase the number of uninsured people by 24 million over the same period. The bill immediately faced objections from both moderate and conservative Republicans. The former worried that too many people would lose affordable coverage, while the latter complained that the plan left too many burdensome provisions of the ACA in place. The anxieties of moderates in particular were amplified by the angry feedback they received at town hall meetings throughout the country from constituents who feared the loss of their health insurance. Unable to bridge the differences between the two factions, in late March the House leadership withdrew the bill without a vote—a major defeat for Trump, who had made repeal and replacement of the ACA a centerpiece of his campaign.

Six weeks later the House narrowly passed a revised version of the AHCA over the unanimous opposition of Democrats. A subsequent CBO analysis projected that the new version would reduce the deficit by $119 billion over 10 years as compared with current law and increase the number of uninsured people by 23 million.

Soon after the AHCA was passed, Republicans in the Senate, working largely in secret and without input from Democrats, began crafting their own replacement for the ACA, initially called the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA). Like the AHCA, the BCRA, in numerous versions under various names, would have decreased the deficit but significantly increased the number of uninsured, and it would have increased insurance premiums in the first year after its passage, according to analyses released by the CBO in late June. The BCRA thus faced the same criticisms that had beset the House measure, revealing deep divisions between Senate Republicans who wished to limit the loss of health insurance in their states and those who aimed to dismantle as much of the current law as possible. Eventually, within a single week in late July, the Senate voted on three bills: a repeal of major provisions of the ACA without immediate replacement; a relatively comprehensive repeal and replacement of the ACA; and a more modest “skinny” repeal and replacement. Despite considerable political pressure on Senate Republicans from the Trump administration, all three measures failed.

Having been unsuccessful in their attempts to repeal and replace the ACA, Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration pursued a series of measures intended to cumulatively undermine the law by making the health insurance it provided less accessible, less affordable, and less effective (through reductions in coverage and other measures), a strategy that Trump described as allowing Obamacare to “explode.” Those changes, some of which predated the failure of Republican alternatives to the ACA in the Senate, included cutting funding for advertising and for assistance with enrollment in Obamacare; drastically reducing open enrollment periods; ending cost-sharing subsidies that enabled insurance companies to reduce out-of-pocket expenses for low- and middle-income Americans; and repealing (effective in 2019) the ACA’s “individual mandate,” which had required all Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty. (The last measure was part of Republican tax legislation drafted in secret and passed without Democratic support in December 2017; Trump signed the measure later that month. A subsequent analysis by the CBO determined that the legislation, which among other things reduced the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent, would increase the federal deficit by approximately $1.8 trillion over a 10-year period.) In November 2017 a study by the CBO had estimated that repealing the individual mandate and making no other changes to the ACA would increase the number of uninsured people by 13 million after 10 years and raise premiums by 10 percent in most years through 2027. Other changes included allowing states to impose work requirements on people receiving Medicaid; allowing the creation of “association health plans” that would offer fewer essential health benefits than plans under the ACA and charge higher premiums to certain enrollees based on factors such as gender, occupation, and age; and permitting the sale of short-term plans that would provide minimal benefits and would not cover medical services for preexisting conditions.

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The United States will not impose sanctions and tariffs on Colombia after the South American nation agreed to accept deported migrants from the US.

The White House confirmed that Colombia backed down and agreed to accept repatriated citizens on military flights.

President Donald Trump will maintain visa restrictions on Colombian officials and enhanced customs inspections of goods from the country, “until the first planeload of Colombian deportees is successfully returned,” the White House added.

Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo said the country has “overcome the impasse with the US”.

“The government of Colombia … has the presidential plane ready to facilitate the return of Colombians who were going to arrive in the country this morning on deportation flights,” he said.

Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo said Colombia has overcome the impasse with the US government. (Reuters: Luisa Gonzalez)

Earlier, Mr Trump had ordered emergency tariffs on goods and an immediate travel ban on Colombian officials after the country rejected two flights carrying migrants repatriated from America.

Mr Trump made the announcement on his Truth Social social media platform on Sunday, local time, and said the decision of Colombian President Gustavo Petro had “jeopardised” national security in the US.

“These measures are just the beginning,” the president wrote in his post.

“We will not allow the Colombian government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the criminals they forced into the United States.”

In his post, the president announced he had ordered emergency tariffs of 25 per cent to be applied to the costs of Colombian goods coming into the US, with the figure to be raised to 50 per cent in one week.

US President Donald Trump say he has ordered immediate sanctions against Colombia. (AP: Mark Schiefelbein)

He also said there would be a “travel ban and immediate visa revocations on the Colombian government officials, and all allies and supporters”, as well as visa sanctions on Colombian government party members, their family and supporters.

Increased customs and border protection checks would also be enforced against Colombians and cargo coming into the US, the president said.

Mr Trump’s comments came after Mr Petro announced Colombia would not accept flights carrying migrants deported from the US until the Trump administration created a protocol that treated those individuals with “dignity”.

Hours later, Mr Petro responded to the US president’s sanctions in a lengthy statement posted on X by announcing he would also be imposing 25 per cent tariffs on US goods entering Colombia.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced his country would not take repatriation flights from the US until the Trump administration created a policy that treated migrants with ‘dignity’. (Reuters: Luisa Gonzalez)

“I don’t like your oil, Trump, you’re going to wipe out the human species because of greed,” Mr Petro said in the post.

“You consider me an inferior race and I’m not, nor is any Colombian. So if you know someone who is stubborn, that’s me, period.

“You can try to carry out a coup with your economic strength and your arrogance, like they did with Allende. But I will die in my law, I resisted torture and I resist you. I don’t want slavers next to Colombia, we already had many and we freed ourselves.

“Your blockade does not scare me, because Colombia, besides being the country of beauty … From today on, Colombia is open to the entire world, with open arms.”

US imports of Colombian goods and services were valued at $US24.8 billion ($39.2 billion) in 2022, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative.

Global economic monitor CEPII says Colombia’s biggest export to the US is crude petroleum, which accounts for almost 40 per cent of its trade into America, followed by coffee and cut flowers.

Donald Trump said his sanctions on Colombia would include a travel ban and immediate revocation of visas for Colombian government officials. (Reuters: Eduardo Munoz)

In announcing his earlier rejection of migrant repatriation flights, Mr Petro denounced the US’ handling of deportees “as criminals” along with a news video of migrants reportedly deported to Brazil walking on a tarmac with their hands and feet restrained.

“A migrant is not a criminal and must be treated with the dignity that a human being deserves,” Mr Petro said.

“That is why I returned the US military planes that were carrying Colombian migrants.”

He also added that his country would receive Colombians in “civilian air planes” and “without treatment like criminals”.

Colombia had accepted 475 deportation flights from the United States between 2020 and 2024 — including 124 last year — putting the country fifth in total behind Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and El Salvador, according to Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks flight data.

Colombians emerged in recent years as a major presence on the US border with Mexico, aided in part by a visa regime that allows them to easily fly to Mexico and avoid trekking though the treacherous Darien Gap.

They ranked fourth with 127,604 arrests for illegal crossings during a 12-month period through September, behind Mexicans, Guatemalans and Venezuelans.

The US government says the country imported $US24.8 billion worth of Colombian goods and services in 2022. (Reuters: Ken Cedeno)

Mr Petro, a former leftist guerilla, later announced that the South American country’s presidential aircraft had been made available to facilitate the return of migrants who were to arrive hours earlier on the US military airplanes and guarantee them “dignified conditions.”

Two hours after Mr Trump’s order of the sanctions, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Mr Petro of initially authorising the migrant repatriation flights to his country but rescinding that approval after planes had taken off.

“It is the responsibility of each nation to take back their citizens who are illegally present in the United States in a serious and expeditious manner,” Mr Rubio said in a post on X.

“President Trump has made it clear that under his administration, America will no longer be lied to nor taken advantage of.”

Mr Petro refuted that claim, saying: “I will never allow Colombians to be brought in handcuffs on flights. Marco, if officials from the Foreign Ministry allowed this, it would never be under my direction.”

On Saturday in Brazil, the country’s foreign ministry condemned the “degrading treatment” of Brazilians after a plane carrying 88 Brazilian passengers, 16 US security agents and eight crew members had been originally scheduled to arrive in Belo Horizonte in the south-eastern state of Minas Gerais.

Brazilian officials ordered the removal of handcuffs seen in a news video, and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva designated a Brazilian Air Force flight to complete their journey, the government said in a statement.

Rebellious states work to make things tough for Trump Photo shows Donald Trump wears a blue suit and red tie as he looks to his side while standing at a podium With the Democrats in the minority in both chambers of the US Congress, it’s likely the anti-Trump resistance will be led from outside the nation’s capital.

The commercial charter flight was the second this year from the US carrying undocumented migrants deported back to Brazil and the first since Trump’s inauguration, according to Brazil’s federal police.

As part of a flurry of actions to make good on Mr Trump’s election campaign promises to crack down on illegal immigration, his new administration is using active-duty military to help secure the border and carry out deportations.

Two Air Force C-17 cargo planes carrying migrants removed from the US touched down early on Friday in Guatemala.

That same day, Honduras received two deportation flights carrying a total of 193 people.

Colombia’s refusal to accept the flights, however, is the second case of a Latin American nation refusing deportation flights, after Mexico also refused a request last week from the Trump administration to allow US military aircraft carrying migrants to land.

AP/Reuters