A Mexican man deported from the US and sent to South Sudan returned to Mexico on Saturday, according to South Sudanese officials.
Ambassador Apuk Ayuel Mayen, spokesperson for South Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirmed J. Jesus Muñoz Gutierrez’s “smooth and orderly” departure during a press conference at Juba International Airport on Saturday.
Muñoz was released into the custody of the Mexican ambassador-designate to South Sudan, Alejandro Estivill, Mayen said. CNN has reached out to Mexico’s Foreign Ministry for comment.
Addressing reporters in Juba before stepping aboard a plane, Muñoz said he “felt kidnapped” by the US when he was sent to South Sudan.
“I was not planning to come to South Sudan, but while I was here, they treated me well,” Muñoz told reporters. “I finished my time in the United States, and they were supposed to return me to Mexico. Instead, they wrongfully sent me to South Sudan.”
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin disputed Muñoz’s characterization of his deportation, saying Muñoz “received due process and had a final order of removal.”
“All eight sent to South Sudan were egregious criminal illegal aliens,” McLaughlin said. “Aliens who commit these types of crimes are frequently not taken back by their home countries.”
Muñoz was one of eight people deported from the US and sent to east Africa in May. He and the other deportees were initially diverted to Djibouti, where they were held in a converted Conex shipping container on a military base while the Trump administration fought for more than a month in federal court to send them to South Sudan.
Lawyers for the eight detainees – who came from Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and other countries, along with Mexico – had argued that they would face dangerous physical conditions in South Sudan, which has struggled with intercommunal violence since its independence in 2011.
By early July, a Supreme Court ruling and a subsequent interpretation by a federal court in Massachusetts allowed the government to send the eight to the war-torn east African nation.
“Law and order prevails,” McLaughlin said on X following the decision at the time.
Six of the eight original deportees remain in custody in South Sudan, Mayen said, and the South Sudanese government is working with their respective home governments to repatriate them. One deportee, a South Sudanese citizen, was freed earlier, the Associated Press reported Saturday.
Beyond South Sudan, the Trump administration is also coordinating US deportations with other African countries including Rwanda, Uganda and Eswatini. While Rwanda recently reached an agreement to take in up to 250 migrants deported from the US, Uganda has publicly insisted it will only accept limited cases, and Eswatini has already received deportees despite mounting criticism.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
CNN’s Veronica Calderon contributed reporting.
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