Why Asian and Mexican immigrants, moments away from being deported to Libya, never left the U.S.
Source: NBC News
Why Asian and Mexican immigrants, moments away from being deported to Libya, never left the U.S.
The immigrants were woken up at 2:30 a.m. and boarded on a bus to wait for hours outside a military plane in Texas. They were then sent back to solitary confinement.
May 8, 2025, 6:37 PM EDT
By Kimmy Yam and Laura Strickler
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.
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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.”
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Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/asian-mexican-migrants-libya-sat-texas-military-plane-rcna205668
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