U.S. military aircraft as seen at U.S. Military Base Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti. Camp Lemonnier is the only permanent United States military base in Africa. (Getty Images)
According to Harper, ICE officials were not given anti-malaria medication prior to traveling to Djibouti – subjecting them to unknown levels of disease exposure in a war-torn region, where there has been an uptick in deadly clashes over resource scarcity, including cattle and access to potable water. The president of the country declared a state of emergency in certain parts of South Sudan just days ago.
And even within the confines of the U.S. base, there are significant risks.
According to ICE's submission, the migrants are being housed in a converted Conex shipping container at the U.S. military base in Djibouti, the only permanent military base the U.S. currently operates in Africa. Since their arrival, daily temperatures there have exceeded 100 degrees – searing conditions that they said make detention "of any length," especially longer term.
Nearby burn pits used by Djibouti to burn off trash and human waste form a giant "smog cloud" that hangs over the base for much of the day, exposing the group to unknown hazardous materials burned off under breezeless, blistering hot skies.
Some ICE officers have started to sleep in N-95 masks for additional protection, Harper noted.
APPEALS COURT BLOCKS TRUMP ADMIN'S DEPORTATION FLIGHTS IN ALIEN ENEMIES ACT IMMIGRATION SUIT
Demonstrators gather outside the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md., to protest the continued detention of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a migrant and alleged MS-13 member who was deported to El Salvador in March. (Fox News Digital- Breanne Deppisch)
Murphy had stated in a previous order that migrants deported to South Sudan need not be held there, in a country where recent infighting and deadly conflict have displaced more than 150,000 people this year alone.
He said then that the government had mischaracterized his order, "while at the same time manufacturing the very chaos they decry."
His order requires the Trump administration to keep the six deported migrants in South Sudan under the custody of U.S. officials for a length of time needed to carry out the so-called "reasonable fear interviews," and make a determination over whether the migrants' concerns are adequate.
"The court never said that defendants had to convert their foreign military base into an immigration facility," Murphy wrote in that order.
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"It only left that as an option, again, at defendants’ request," he said then.
It is unclear whether the government has plans to relocate the group.
Breanne Deppisch is a national politics reporter for Fox News Digital covering the Trump administration, with a focus on the Justice Department, FBI, and other national news.
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