South Sudan

In early July 2025, the United States deported eight men to South Sudan after forcibly transferring them out of the United States in violation of a court order. The group included individuals who had been ordered removed to  Cuba, Mexico, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Sudan. The men were deported without notice or an opportunity to express fear of harm in South Sudan. U.N. human rights experts condemned the forced transfers to South Sudan, warning that: “[t]o protect people from torture and other prohibited cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, enforced disappearances, and risks to life, they must be given an opportunity to express their objections to removal in a legally supervised procedure.” As of January 2026, six of the original group of eight third country nationals remain detained by the South Sudanese government in a guarded complex in Juba, South Sudan that lacks sufficient electricity and is plagued with mosquitos.

At the time that the United States initiated the forced transfers to South Sudan, a U.S. federal court had issued a preliminary injunction in D.V.D. v. DHS, prohibiting the deportation of people to a third country that the government never raised as a potential country of removal during their immigration proceedings, without notice or an opportunity to present a fear claim. This practice denies them due process and creates the risk that they will be sent to persecution and torture. It violates the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act, Constitutional due process protections, and international treaty obligations codified in U.S. law including the prohibition on refoulement. After the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initiated the transfers in May 2025, the federal court ruled that DHS had violated the preliminary injunction. Rather than returning the men to the United States, the U.S. government diverted the flight and confined them in a shipping container on a U.S. military base in Djibouti for weeks while it sought a stay of the order from the Supreme Court. On June 23, 2025 the Supreme Court stayed the order and allowed the deportations to proceed. The case drew widespread criticism from rights advocates, who underscored the lack of due process and the dangers of being sent to one of the world’s most unstable states. DHS attempted to justify the removals by claiming that the men’s home countries would not accept them. However, the Government of Mexico spent months coordinating with South Sudan to secure the safe return of the Mexican national, which occurred in September 2025. Monthly removal flights from the United States to Cuba are ongoing, and several such flights from the United States to Laos and Vietnam have taken place in recent months.  After initially being detained, the man from Sudan was reportedly released to his family.

In January 2026,  the United States released its formal diplomatic notes with South Sudan about the transfer. The notes reveal that the United States requested, and South Sudan agreed to receive, a single flight of 13 third-country nationals from Bolivia, Burma, Cuba (2), Laos (3), Mali, Mexico, the Phillipines, Tanzania, and Vietnam. The list included those individuals’ names, ages, and criminal convictions. Ultimately, the United States then sent just one individual from that list, along with seven other people entirely different from those to which South Sudan had agreed.  The diplomatic notes state that “South Sudan will ensure that all individuals are treated in full compliance with its international legal obligations, including those under the related Conventions. The government affirms that it will not return or remove any individual to a country where they may face a credible risk of persecution…”

According to the exchanged diplomatic notes, at the time it agreed to receive this flight, South Sudan requested (among other things) that the Trump administration lift sanctions on powerful businessman and political insider Benjamin Bol Mel, reverse visa restrictions and revocations on South Sudanese nationals, and invest and encourage investment in South Sudan’s  oil, gas, and mineral sectors. South Sudanese officials also sought U.S. backing in their efforts to prosecute First Vice President Riek Machar, currently under house arrest. There is no indication that the United States has taken any of these steps to appease South Sudan, or that there is a broader agreement beyond the single flight of third-country nationals in July. 

Third-country nationals detained in South Sudan likely continue to face inhumane conditions. Reports indicate that detainees are routinely held incommunicado, unable to contact legal counsel or family members for weeks or longer. Credible and consistent documentation shows that detention in South Sudan carries a grave risk of torture, including in official prisons, jails, and the National Security Service’s (NSS) informal secret detention facilities known as “ghost houses.” Torture and ill-treatment are widespread and systematic, and detainees are frequently denied access to legal processes, held without charge for indefinite periods, and deprived of food, water, and medical care to coerce confessions or extort money. Deaths in custody are common, with bodies bearing signs of torture reportedly dumped in rivers, ditches, or along roadsides.

Security and humanitarian conditions in South Sudan are dire. The U.S. State Department cautions against travel to South Sudan due to crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict. Years of failed peace agreements have left South Sudan mired in violence between government and opposition forces. In 2024, the rupture of a critical oil pipeline in neighboring Sudan triggered a fiscal crisis, cutting state revenue by nearly two-thirds. International monitors describe ongoing political violence, corruption, and widespread human rights abuses, underscoring the dangers to individuals transferred there. South Sudan also has a history of serious abuses against individuals held in police and military custody. 

Despite these abysmal conditions, the Trump administration on November 6, 2025 terminated Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for South Sudan (effective January 5, 2026). The administration claimed this was necessary to “send[ing] consistent foreign policy messaging” regarding the need for South Sudan to accept both nationals and third country removal from the United States. On December 30, 2025, however, a federal district judge blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary deportation protections for migrants from South Sudan, citing in her opinion “serious, long-term consequences, including the risk of deadly harm” facing the migrants should they be expelled to South Sudan.