Lawyers for the migrants say they were given abrupt notice regarding their clients’ removal to South Sudan, a war-torn nation facing a hunger crisis.

The Trump administration said Wednesday that immigrants flown to South Sudan in potential defiance of a court order were such violent criminals, no other country would take them.The individuals in question,

A federal judge has ruled that U.S. officials must retain custody and control of migrants apparently removed to South Sudan in case he orders their removals were unlawful.

Immigration attorneys have asked a Massachusetts federal judge to block a Trump administration move to deport migrants — including nationals from Myanmar and Vietnam — to South Sudan or other third countries.

In a chaotic hearing, Trump administration officials told a federal judge they did not know where a plane of deportees was going. The judge raised the possibility that he could order its return.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Immigration authorities appear to have begun deporting migrants from Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan despite a court order on removals to third countries, attorneys for the migrants said Tuesday. Up to a dozen people from several countries may have been deported to Africa, immigration rights lawyers told a judge.