A Filipino immigrant detained in Texas described being woken up at 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday by armed guards in tactical gear, being told he was being sent to Libya, and then waiting for hours on a bus at a military base outside a military plane, his lawyer said.
The flight never took off and he was sent back to solitary confinement in the Texas facility along with the other 12 detainees, mostly from Asian countries, the immigrant’s lawyer, Johnny Sinodis, told NBC News. The immigrant requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation.
The immigrants, including people from the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos and Mexico, would later learn that their attorneys filed an emergency motion after reports that the Trump administration had planned to send a group of immigrants to Libya.
A federal judge then enforced a previous order Wednesday afternoon, halting deportations to third countries.
Tin Nguyen, another immigration attorney whose client was aboard the bus, said that though the deportation was halted, many continue to be on edge over the possibility of being sent to a country that is unfamiliar to them and has been criticized for major human rights abuses.
“Libya or El Salvador or Rwanda … it’s very scary for people,” Nguyen, who’s based in North Carolina, said. “People don’t know anything about these countries, and what they have heard about them is very terrifying.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment on questions related to the deportation flight and legal motion.
Last week, a judge granted a preliminary injunction, ruling that prior to removing any noncitizen to a third country, the Trump administration must take several steps to ensure they receive adequate due process.
Sinodis said that his client had been told earlier this week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that he was being sent to Libya. Days later, the detainees were given a few minutes to gather their belongings before being processed out of the facility, shackled and shuffled onto a bus, the attorney said.
The detainees were eventually taken back to the facility and released to the facility’s general population by the next morning.
Sinodis criticized the process as both legally concerning and inefficient. Sending an immigrant from Mexico across the world, for example, makes little sense, he said.
“I mean how much money does it cost to send someone from Mexico to Libya?” he said. “You can just drive someone to Mexico.”
Nguyen recounted a similar chain of events, adding that his client, who’s Vietnamese, had previously been threatened with the prospect of being sent to Libya. At one point, the detainee and others were ordered to sign a document agreeing to be deported to the country, according to the emergency motion filed on Wednesday, in which Nguyen’s client is a plaintiff.
“He didn’t read the document. He can’t read [English] and it wasn’t translated in Vietnamese, or through an interpreter. So he refused to sign,” Nguyen said. “And because he refused to sign, he was separated from the other folks.”
The emergency motion said that detainees who refused to sign off on the removal to Libya were put in separate rooms, “cuffed in” and forced to provide their signatures for the document.
After hours on the tarmac, Nguyen said his client called his wife.
“They were not intermingling with the general population or with each other, but they were able to make phone calls,” Nguyen said.
Nguyen said it’s unclear what will happen next, but his client would rather be sent back to Vietnam than a third country.
“This time around I’m helping folks speed up the process of actually trying to get the travel documents from Vietnam, so people can just go to Vietnam,” the attorney said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last month at a Cabinet meeting that the United States is “actively searching for other countries to take people.”
“We are working with other countries to say, ‘We want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries,’” Rubio said. “‘Will you do that as a favor to us?’ And the further away the better, so they can’t come back across the border.”
Reports of plans to send migrants to Libya drew backlash from immigration and humanitarian advocates.
Libya has long been criticized for its treatment of migrants. The Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya, established by the United Nations Human Rights Council, found in its report from 2023 that it was likely that “crimes against humanity were committed against Libyans and migrants throughout Libya.”
The report documented examples of “arbitrary detention, murder, torture, rape, enslavement, sexual slavery, extrajudicial killing and enforced disappearance, confirming their widespread practice in Libya.”
The State Department’s own website cautioned against traveling to Libya, classifying the country as under a Level 4, the highest advisory level due to a “greater likelihood of life-threatening risks.”
Libya’s provisional Government of National Unity said on social media that it is not coordinating deportations with the United States and that it rejects using the country as a destination for deported immigrants without its knowledge or consent.
“The Government categorically denies the existence of any agreement or coordination with it regarding the reception of any migrants deported from the United States,” it said.
