Deported migrants queue to receive an essential items bag during the arrival of a group of deported Salvadorans at Gerencia de Atención al Migrante on Feb. 12, 2025 in San Salvador, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Peña/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Immigration attorneys are asking a Massachusetts federal judge for an emergency temporary restraining order to stop the Trump administration from removing their clients to Libya and Saudi Arabia as soon as Wednesday, in a major new development in President Donald Trump’s drive for mass deportations.
“Multiple credible sources report that flights are preparing to immediately depart the United States carrying class members for removal to Libya,” according to the new filings, referring to a group of migrants.
Sending migrants to the North African nation is striking, as it is the site of an ongoing conflict and the State Department has a travel advisory against traveling to Libya due to “crime, terrorism, unexploded land mines, civil unrest, kidnapping and armed conflict.”
The class members the attorneys are concerned about include nationals from Laos, the Philippines and Vietnam. As the Trump administration seeks to carry out mass deportations, it’s sought partnerships with countries to take migrants, such as sending them to CECOT, a notorious prison in El Salvador.
The practice has spawned numerous ongoing lawsuits over use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and allegations the administration is ignoring due process for deportees.
In a complication, Libya’s prime minister in Tripoli, Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, wrote on social media that his country would not accept migrants deported by the Trump administration.
“We refuse to be a destination for the deportation of migrants under any pretext, and any understandings made by illegal parties that do not represent the Libyan state, and do not bind us politically or morally, as human dignity and national sovereignty are not a negotiable card,” he wrote.
Injunction bars removals
Attorneys say such removals would violate U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy’s preliminary injunction that bars removals of migrants to a third country without adequate notice.
“Class members were being scheduled for removal despite not receiving the required notice and opportunity to apply for (United Nations Convention Against Torture) protection,” according to the filing. “This motion follows class counsel receiving multiple reports that class members and their immigration counsel have not received the required protections provided by this Court’s Preliminary Injunction.”
The attorneys are also asking that any class members removed to Libya be returned to U.S. soil.
Flights to Saudi Arabia
There are also concerns that those in the group could be removed to Saudi Arabia.
“Class Counsel has also received a report that Defendants and those working with them may be planning flights to Saudi Arabia. At least one detainee—a citizen of Laos—reported that he had been verbally informed he was to be removed imminently to Saudi Arabia on a military flight,” according to the brief.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.
In April, Murphy certified the class to include all immigrants with final orders of removal who were facing deportations to a country that was not their home country.
Murphy, who was appointed by former president Joe Biden, issued a nationwide injunction to bar that group’s removal to a third country without first being provided written notice.
He also ruled that those who are being removed to such a country must “be given an opportunity to explain why such a deportation will likely result in their persecution, torture, and/or death.”
The suit was brought by the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project and Human Rights First.
“Libya has a long record of extreme human rights violations,” according to the court filing. “Any Class Member who is removed to Libya faces a strong likelihood of imprisonment followed by torture and even disappearance or death. Indeed, given Libya’s human rights record, it is inconceivable that Class Members from other countries would ever agree to removal to Libya, but instead would uniformly seek protection from being removed to Libya.”
Torture and abuse among human rights violations
The State Department’s 2023 human rights report on the country found human rights violations experienced by migrants who were either being held by Libya’s government or armed groups.
“The criminal and nonstate armed groups controlling extralegal facilities routinely tortured and abused detainees, subjecting them to arbitrary killings, rape and sexual violence, beatings, electric shocks, burns, forced labor, and deprivation of food and water, according to dozens of testimonies shared with international aid agencies and human rights groups,” according to the report.
The State Department’s 2023 human rights report on Saudi Arabia said it was possible migrants were killed by Saudi Arabia forces.
“There were reports that Saudi security forces along the border with Yemen killed significant numbers of African and Yemeni migrants and asylum seekers using both explosive weapons and by shooting individuals at close range,” according to the report.
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