Lawyers for some of the eight migrants deported Tuesday said they were told they were being sent to South Sudan. People familiar with the flight said it had landed for the time being in Djibouti.

A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the US government violated his court order by attempting to deport migrants to South Sudan, opening another front in a battle between Donald Trump and judges who have imposed checks on the Republican president's hardline immigration policies.

It’s the latest rebuke in an escalating clash over Trump’s deportation agenda. Several judges have now accused the administration of defying the courts.

A judge ruled that the Trump administration's deportations of eight men convicted of violent crimes to South Sudan was "unquestionably violative of this Court's order."

DHS officials said the eight men were in the U.S. illegally from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, South Sudan and Vietnam, and all had criminal convictions.

A federal district judge on May 21 said the Trump administration violated his court order by removing eight migrants to South Sudan without giving them an opportunity to object. The men, who have all been convicted of serious crimes,

A judge ordered the Trump administration to maintain custody of the migrants, whose lawyers say they were on a flight bound for violence-plagued South Sudan.