TPM / David Kurtz: DHS Inadvertently Confirms Migrant Flight To South Sudan

[Dennis Donovan]

TPM / David Kurtz - DHS Inadvertently Confirms Migrant Flight To South Sudan

David Kurtz
10:54 a.m.

In a bizarre and hastily arranged press conference less than an hour before a court hearing in Boston in the case, the Department of Homeland Security declined to confirm that the final destination of a migrant flight from Texas yesterday was South Sudan.

But the ICE livestream of the press conference on YouTube was headlined: “DHS Press Conference on Migrant Flight to South Sudan”

Asked by a reporter about the YouTube headline, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin demurred and echoed what she’d said earlier in the press conference: “I would caution you to make the assumption that their final destination is South Sudan.”

At another point in the press conference, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons confirmed that a total of eight migrants were aboard yesterday’s flight from Texas and that all of their home countries had refused to take them.

The implication of the Trump administration officials’ hedged and confusing language is that South Sudan was a way point but not the final destination for the flight, which McLaughlin called a “diplomatic and military security operation.” The officials would not provide information on the final destination of the flight or the migrants, citing operational security concerns.

/snip

[Hugin]

1. In my opinion...

Someone in the Trump Homeland Gestapo is being far too cute and splitting legal hair.

“They said we couldn’t deport without due process to Central or South America, but they didn’t say we couldn’t deport to Sudan… *heh… heh… snort… heh*”

Resulting in a signature Tangeranus “delay” while the courts try to catch up with their slow finely ground rulings.