Tuan Thanh Phan, a Vietnamese man ordered removed by an immigration judge in 2009, was arrested by ICE in May 2025 and placed on a deportation flight to South Sudan, part of a group of eight men sent there under the program. A federal judge had ruled that the flight violated a court order requiring migrants be given a meaningful opportunity to object to removal on safety grounds. After nearly a year in South Sudanese custody, Phan was repatriated to Vietnam on June 19, 2026, in a move coordinated by the Vietnamese government and South Sudan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.