Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Harris has said he is seeking “legal clarity” about the use of Shannon Airport as a stopping-off point for a United States aircraft carrying deportees to North Africa.
The aircraft was carrying individuals described by a US Homeland Security official as “barbaric” and “violent” to Africa against the directions of a US federal court judge.
Flight-tracking data obtained by the New York Times traced a Gulfstream jet owned by a private company that stopped off at Shannon for two hours after leaving an airport in Harlingen, Texas, on Tuesday. From Shannon, the aircraft travelled on to an airport in Djibouti, arriving there on Wednesday.
It is reported the final destination of the eight deportees was South Sudan.
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At a hastily called press conference on Wednesday, Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary for public affairs at the US Department of Homeland Security, stressed the gravity of the crimes committed by the deportees.
“We conducted a deportation flight from Texas to remove some of the most barbaric violent individuals illegally in the United States. No country on Earth wanted to accept them because their crimes are so monstrous and barbaric. Every single one of them was convicted of a heinous crime – murder, rape, child rape.”
Among those believed to be being deported are men from Vietnam, Cuba, Myanmar, Laos and Mexico. Their removal took place in conflict with the instructions of a US district judge, Massachusetts-based Brian E Murphy.
Judge Murphy had ordered the immigration authorities to carry out screening interviews with the men, with their lawyers and interpreters present, to establish whether they qualified for humanitarian aid.
His decision came after an emergency motion was filed by lawyers representing the men, stating that their clients had been informed that they were being deported to South Sudan rather than their home countries.
In the Dáil, Mr Harris said the US deportation flight that landed in Shannon “was a civil aircraft and as such, no diplomatic clearance would have been sought or indeed would have been required”.
Mr Harris, who is Minister for Foreign Affairs said it was “very much an evolving situation”.
He was responding in the Dáil to Labour leader Ivana Bacik who said that the return flight from Sudan was due at Shannon on Thursday evening and she asked if it would be permitted to land.
“The regulation of civil aircraft and flights is a matter for the Department of Transport,” the Tánaiste said. “Diplomatic clearance to overfly or land in the State is required from my own department for any military and state aircraft, but not for civil aircraft.
“And what is most important is that we now have full clarity on what may or may not have taken place. So officials from my own department are liaising with the Department of Transport, the Department of Justice and the US authorities.”
Ms Bacik noted Judge Murphy had ruled that the Trump administration’s attempt to deport migrants from a number of countries to South Sudan “unquestionably violated an earlier court order”.
“We understand that one of the planes in question, flight JNY 588 is due to refuel here at Shannon Airport on its return journey from Sudan later today, at about 9.30pm this evening.”
She said this was just the latest controversy about the use of Shannon Airport by the US administration. “We know that planes are landing at Shannon en route to deliver bombs to Israel for use in that brutal bombardment of Gaza that has caused so much death, so much devastation, so many children whose lives have been ended.
“Yet Irish Government ministers have shown an astounding lack of curiosity about how our airspace and airports are being used by the US at any given time.”
The Tánaiste said he was concerned “about some of the aggressive migration policy that we see being pursued” in the US but “it’s not for us to determine the legality of the US administration’s actions in relation to their courts.
“It is for the US administration to answer in the same way that if we had a deportation flight landing in another country, there would be a presumption that those on that flight are lawfully detained.
“So I am trying to piece together here information that is coming at us in the first instance through US media and the decision of the US courts.”
At her press conference, Ms McLaughlin criticised Judge Murphy for “trying to bring them back” after the Homeland Security had eventually found a country willing to accept the deportees.
“It is absolutely absurd for a district judge to try and dictate the foreign policy and national security of the United States of America,” she said. “We are following due process under the US constitution.”
The episode represents the latest clash between US federal judges and the department over deportation flights taking place in defiance of court orders.
Judge Murphy ruled the US government’s attempt to deport migrants to South Sudan “unquestionably” violated an earlier court order. He made the remark at an emergency hearing he had ordered in Boston following the deportations.
On Tuesday, Judge Murphy ruled that US president Donald Trump could not let a group of migrants being transported to countries that were not their own leave the custody of US immigration authorities.
Lawyers for seven of the men were told that their clients were given little more than 24 hours’ notice that they were being expelled from the US. Judge Murphy said such a short period of time was “plainly insufficient”.
An eighth man in the group was a citizen of South Sudan, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, has widely been described as being on the verge of descending into another episode of civil war. – Additional reporting: AP
