Marble Falls      You can’t make this stuff up.  It’s diabolical.  You know, we’re talking about deporting immigrants again.  This time a plane of immigrants originally from Myanmar and Vietnam, it appears, has landed in South Sudan.

Tell the truth.  You don’t know much about South Sudan.  That’s understandable.  It’s the world’s newest country.  After a lengthy and terrible civil war with Sudan, independence was only won in 2011.  Geographically, the country is in East Africa bordered by Sudan, of course, but also Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, the Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic.  Since independence, the 11 million people in South Sudan have been torn by civil wars, with the current government a tenuous coalition of leaders of the opposing sides.  According to Wikipedia, “It is one of the least developed countries in the world, ranking the lowest in the Human Development Index, and having the second-lowest nominal GDP per capita, after Burundi.”

ACORN Uganda works in Arua where the studio for RadioACORN is also located.  Arua lies at the northwestern corner of Uganda near the border of South Sudan.  Our head organizer, during our regular ACORN Africa call, told all of us that there are many refugees from South Sudan in Arua and the northern districts, but that people in Arua are afraid to go South Sudan because of the unstable situation there.  A friend and comrade had brothers who worked in well drilling and services to nonprofits in South Sudan, who were forced to pull up stakes, as the country has devolved into conflict and more extreme poverty.

Yet, Kristi Noem, head of the Department of Homeland Security, and the sharp point of President Trump’s deportation spear, has repatriated some unknown number, perhaps less than 20, immigrants there, largely from southeastern Asia.  South Dakota, where she was governor, is probably glad to see her gone, she was even barred from by tribal leadership from the reservations in the state, but the rest of the world is suffering from her extremism and impunity.  Courts had mandated that immigrants could not be deported to other than their home countries.  Other courts mandated that there had to be the opportunity for immigrants to have hearings before deportation and to receive orders in their languages, rather than only English.  A federal judge, on hearing of the plane’s route, mandated that the US had to maintain custody of the immigrants in South Sudan in order to block a repeat of having a country claim they couldn’t be returned, as the dictator of El Salvador has tried to maintain, without any credibility.

There are few countries that make El Salvador look good, but South Sudan this minute may be one of them.  As horrid as reports of El Salvadorian prisons have been, it’s unclear how rudimentary the prison system might be in South Sudan.  It’s unimaginable how the country could repatriate any immigrants.  Post civil war, the infrastructure of airports and general transportation hardly exists.

All of this seems like the equivalent of dropping people in the middle of nowhere and saying good riddance, rather than good luck.  Who thinks up plans this draconian, stripped of any rhyme or reason outside of plain and simple cruelty?  Is that supposed to be the point?  Is this supposed to send fear into the hearts of all immigrants that they could be deported to wherever the US government thinks might be a version of hell for them?

This can’t be who we are as a country, but it seems to be precisely what we now are as a government.