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.

The US has deported to South Sudan eight migrants who had been held for more than a month at a military base in Djibouti, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

The deportation comes after the migrants lost a last-ditch effort to halt their transfer to the politically unstable country.

The men were deported on Friday, the July 4 Independence Day holiday in the US, Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a press release.

“This was a win for the rule of law, safety and security of the American people,” Ms McLaughlin said.

An aircraft carrying US deportees arrived in South Sudan on Saturday, two officials working at Juba airport said.

Trump administration plans to re-deport Abrego Garcia Photo shows Kilmar Abrego Garcia wears a black t-shirt and Chicago Bulls cap. The US Justice Department says it intends to try Kilmar Abrego Garcia on federal smuggling charges before it moves to deport him.

An airport staffer speaking on condition of anonymity told Reuters he had seen a document showing that the aircraft “arrived this morning at 6am”.

An immigration official also said the deportees had arrived in the country but shared no further details, referring all questions to the National Security Service intelligence agency.

Earlier, a South Sudan government source said US officials had been at the airport awaiting the migrants’ arrival.

The fate of the migrants had become a flashpoint in the fight over the legality of the Trump administration’s campaign to deter immigration through high-profile deportations to so-called “third countries”, where migrants say they face safety concerns, which has already gone from lower courts to the Supreme Court twice.

South Sudan has long been dangerous even for local residents.

The US State Department advises citizens not to travel there due to violent crime and armed conflict.

Australia’s Smart Traveller advises Australians not to travel to South Sudan, “due to the dangerous security situation and the threat of violence and armed conflict. The security situation is volatile and could deteriorate rapidly with little or no warning”.

The United Nations has said the African country’s political crisis could reignite a brutal civil war that ended in 2018.

Eight deportees not from South Sudan

The eight men, who according to their lawyers are from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Sudan and Vietnam, had argued their deportations to South Sudan would violate the US constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.

They had been held in US custody in Djibouti since a federal judge in Boston in May blocked the Trump administration from immediately moving them to South Sudan over due process concerns.

Following additional litigation, the Supreme Court on Thursday sided with the administration, lifting those limits.

Two courts considered requests from the migrants’ lawyers on an emergency basis on Friday, when courts are otherwise closed for the holiday, but ultimately US District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston said the Supreme Court order required him to deny their bid, clearing the way for their deportation.

The location of the men in South Sudan after their arrival was not immediately known.

Reuters

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Fourth of July is about all things American: parades, cookouts, cold beer and of course, fireworks.

Those pyrotechnics remain at the center of Independence Day, a holiday 247 years in the making. Massive fireworks lit up the skyline of multiple American cities, marking festivities across the country.

Despite widespread education efforts, thousands of Americans are badly injured by fireworks each year. Still, consumer sales of fireworks have rapidly grown over the past two decades.

Statistics from the American Pyrotechnics Association show that in 2000, American consumers spent $407 million on fireworks. By 2024, that figure rose to $2.2 billion.

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This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.