WASHINGTON — Deporting migrants to Libya without a chance to challenge the removals would violate a court order, a federal judge said Wednesday, after immigration attorneys reported that authorities told people they would be sent to the country with a history of human rights violations.

U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Massachusetts has previously found that any migrants deported to countries other than their homelands must first be allowed to argue that removal would jeopardize their safety.

He said that any “allegedly imminent” removals to Libya would “clearly violate this Court’s Order.” He also ordered the government to hand over details about the claims.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said during a news conference in Illinois that she “can’t confirm” media reports of plans to remove people to Libya.

President Donald Trump directed questions to DHS.

Several migrants being held in South Texas were informed early Tuesday of plans to send them to Libya, attorneys said, citing reports from relatives of those in detention.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers gathered six people in a room and told them that they needed to sign a document agreeing that they would be removed to Libya, immigration attorneys representing people from Vietnam said in a court filing.

“When they all refused, they were each put in a separate room and cuffed in (basically, solitary) in order to get them to sign it,” lawyers wrote.

Immigration attorneys say that some of their clients were told by immigration enforcement agents that they were going to be deported to Libya. Some were also told they were going to Saudi Arabia.

Murphy has been overseeing a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its practice of deporting people to countries where they are not citizens.

If it were confirmed that the administration is removing migrants to Libya, a country with a documented history of abusing migrants, or to Saudi Arabia, which has its own history of human rights abuses, that would mark a major escalation of the Trump administration’s efforts to deport migrants from the U.S. to third countries.

Russia-Ukraine war: Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday that Russia was “asking for too much” in its initial peace offer as the United States looks to bring about an end to the war in Ukraine.

The vice president, speaking at a Washington meeting hosted by the Munich Security Conference, did not elaborate on Moscow’s terms but said he was not pessimistic about the possibility of a peace deal. That is a more sanguine assessment than President Donald Trump’s recent skepticism that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to end the war that begin in February 2022 when Russia invaded.

“I wouldn’t say that the Russians are uninterested in bringing this thing to a resolution,” Vance said. “What I would say is right now: The Russians are asking for a certain set of requirements, a certain set of concessions in order to end the conflict. We think they’re asking for too much.”

Trump, when asked later Wednesday about the vice president’s comments, told reporters at the White House, “Well, it’s possible that’s right.”

He seemed to imply that Vance had details that he did not have because he was preoccupied with other matters.

The war started when Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Detained Tufts student: A federal appeals court Wednesday upheld a judge’s order to bring a Turkish Tufts University student from a Louisiana immigration detention center back to New England for hearings to determine whether her rights were violated and if she should be released.

Denying a government request for a delay, the three-judge panel of the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Rumeysa Ozturk after hearing arguments at a hearing Tuesday.

Ozturk has been in Louisiana for over six weeks following an op-ed she co-wrote last year that criticized the school’s response to Israel’s war in Gaza.

The court ordered Ozturk to be transferred to ICE custody in Vermont no later than May 14.

Immigration court proceedings for Ozturk, initiated in Louisiana, are being conducted separately and Ozturk can participate remotely, the court said.

A district court judge in Vermont had ordered that the 30-year-old doctoral student be brought to the state for hearings to determine whether she was illegally detained. Ozturk’s lawyers say her detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process.

Aircraft carrier mishap: An F/A-18 fighter jet landing on the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier in the Red Sea went overboard, forcing its two pilots to eject and be rescued with minor injuries, a defense official said Wednesday.

The incident Tuesday marks the latest mishap to mar the deployment of the Truman, which has been essential in the airstrike campaign by the United States against Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

In April, another F/A-18 fighter jet slipped off the deck of the Truman and fell into the Red Sea.

The crew members in the pilot seat of the Super Hornet and on the towing tractor both jumped away.

NC court election: The Republican challenger for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat conceded last November’s election Wednesday to Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs, two days after a federal judge ruled that potentially thousands of disputed ballots challenged by Jefferson Griffin must remain in the final tally.

Griffin said he would not appeal Monday’s decision by U.S. District Judge Richard Myers, who also ordered that the State Board of Elections certify results that after two previous recounts showed Riggs is the winner by 734 votes from more than 5.5 million ballots cast in the race.

Griffin’s decision sets the stage for Riggs to be officially elected to an eight-year term as an associate justice in the nation’s ninth-largest state.

The state board plans to issue Riggs’ certificate of election May 13. Riggs is one of two Democrats on the seven-member state Supreme Court.