U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio lashed out Friday at a federal judge who intervened to halt the deportation of a planeload of sex offenders and murders, saying his meddling has done severe damage to U.S. foreign policy, is hurting America’s humanitarian mission and even sparked new fighting in Libya, according to Washington Times.
Rubio, in a striking statement to Judge Brian Murphy, said the judge’s intervention this week upended the U.S. government’squiet diplomatic efforts with South Sudan, Libya and Djibouti, interfered with counter-terrorism operations in Africa and could make it tougher to deliver humanitarian aid to eastern part of the continent.
Libya, which had been secretly negotiating with the U.S. to take deportees, has now had to publicly reject the idea. And the judge’s action emboldened rebel forces in Libya, igniting the worst street fighting in three years in the capital, Tripoli, Rubio said.
The unrest also set back negotiations on an energy deal between Libya and a U.S. company, Rubio said.
The scolding marked a massive escalation in the Trump administration’s battle with federal judges, serving as major reinforcements in the government’s claim that judges are meddling in issues they have no business in.
Judge Murphy this week rushed to try to derail deportations of a planeload of convicted major felons, many of them murderers, that the U.S. sent to South Sudan, with the possibility of transferring elsewhere.
Homeland Security officials said the migrants were so vicious that their home countries had refused to take them back and it took tricky diplomacy just to line up the flight to South Sudan.