Shackelford: Sending immigrants to South Sudan is inhumane

When I saw the news a scant weeks ago that President Donald Trump s administration was trying to deport eight men to South Sudan I was shocked I had worked and lived in South Sudan as a diplomat and know the country well It is on the brink of yet another civil war and its regime has a horrific human rights record America s own expedition warning for the country updated greater part in recent months this March is Level Do Not Journey The United States evacuated its nonemergency staff from the embassy earlier this year due to ongoing armed conflict and high levels of violent crime Draft a will It advised any Americans who choose to advance there anyway to draft a will establish a proof of life protocol with loved ones in episode they re taken hostage and prepare their family to manage their affairs in the scenario of their death These are not warnings the U S regime issues lightly Related Articles Letters Instead of hysterics let s focus on settlers Letters Accountability compassion keys to state s homeless agency The tariff-driven US inflation that economists feared begins to emerge A California judge s ruling on immigration raids ripples across nation Here s what you need to know Two Democrats and a Republican went to a California ICE detention center Only one got in Of nearly countries on earth why choose this as a deportation destination Only one of the men deported there is from the country The others have no ties to South Sudan whatsoever rather they come from Myanmar Laos Vietnam Cuba and Mexico None of those are even on the African continent This puts the majority of the men on a far challenging and expensive journey away from anywhere they know The only purpose would be to punish these individuals and to instill fear in any others considering migrating to the United States The Statue of Liberty s promise has been turned on its head South Sudan is one of several countries where this administration seeks to deport asylum seekers regardless of country of origin This includes El Salvador where hundreds have been detained in a notorious prison but the Trump administration is also considering war-torn Libya corrupt Equatorial Guinea and authoritarian Rwanda to name a meager As someone who has worked in South Sudan I can speak to what foreigners could face there specifically and it isn t pretty I wrote our annual human rights overview on the country and was responsible for assisting American citizens there in need This means I have documented the detention and prison conditions the government-perpetrated violence and the futility of its justice system It also means I worked to help U S citizens caught up in it often detained unlawfully and stuck for weeks or longer in prisons with horrific conditions usually sick and with no recourse until they typically bribed their way out For a place with inadequate comforts to offer conflict and corruption have also made South Sudan incredibly expensive Someone without a configuration for sponsorship or any knowledge of the country will only be that much worse off What fate awaits Neither the U S nor the South Sudanese leadership has indicated what fate awaits these men in the capital city Juba Will they be detained or circulated and what then Will they have any help securing onward tour Will they have contact with their families Will they be able to work to earn enough to assistance themselves or to earn a ticket out What conditions if any did the U S administration negotiate for their presence South Sudan s leadership is violent unaccountable and corrupt so I wouldn t put much faith in its commitments anyway It also demands money and I expect that s what it got in return In April the U S establishment revoked all South Sudanese visas as punishment for the country after its regime refused to accept a deportee who was in fact from the Democratic Republic of Congo Cooperating seemingly has more appeal now Unlike preponderance expatriates detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement this year these eight men are indeed convicted criminals though various had either finished or were soon to finish serving their sentences Being sent to an unfamiliar war zone far from their countries of origin families or communities must feel like another criminal sentence How and why did this happen The due process rights of all people not just citizens in the United States have been well established by now The Supreme Court ruled as just now as this May that deportees must be given a proper chance to raise legal objections to their removal to a third country But in the development at hand weeks of legal battles over that right ended in July with the Supreme Court ruling that these deportations could go ahead anyway Their episode has been met with curiosity but little outrage Perhaps it s because only a limited people were affected Or the criminal convictions make it easier to dismiss inhumane rehabilitation Or maybe the American inhabitants is just growing accustomed to our authorities treating foreigners in this way But Trump has made clear he doesn t plan to stop with foreigners His Justice Department is already looking into denaturalizing citizens who have committed crimes and detaining American citizens in foreign prisons We should be more alarmed if not for the medicine of these movers then for the dangerous precedent it sets that could affect us all Elizabeth Shackelford is senior plan director at Dartmouth College s Dickey Center for International Understanding and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune She was previously a U S diplomat Chicago Tribune Distributed by Tribune Content Agency