Lawyers said on Wednesday that US officials told some immigrants they would send them back to Libya. The immigrants are not from Libya, and it is a country with a bad history of treating people unfairly. A judge said the immigrants must have a chance to go to court and say why they should not be sent back.

This legal problem is happening because the Trump government wants to send many people away from the country. They are even trying to send people to countries where they are not citizens. A difficult example is sending people from Venezuela to a bad prison in El Salvador.

Sending people who are being sent away from the US to Libya, a country where migrants are often treated badly, would be a big step in the government's plan to send these people to other countries.

An American official said on Wednesday that they wanted to fly people who had left their homes to Libya on a military plane. But he did not know the exact time the plane would fly. The official did not want his name to be known because he was talking about military plans.

Immigration lawyers say some people they help, from countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, were told by immigration officers they would be sent to Libya.

Immigration officers in south Texas put six people who were being held in a room on Tuesday morning. They were told to sign a paper saying they agreed to be sent back to Libya. Lawyers for people from Vietnam wrote this in a court paper. They heard it from the families of the people being held.

The lawyers wrote that when everyone said no, they were put in separate rooms by themselves so they would sign the paper.

A lawyer for a man from the Philippines wrote to ICE in San Antonio. The lawyer said his client heard he would be sent to Libya. The lawyer wrote that his client "is afraid of being sent to Libya and needs to talk to someone before he is sent."

Judge says people from other countries can try to stop being sent away.

The lawyers went to court on Wednesday. They asked a judge in Massachusetts for help. The judge is in charge of a case against the government. The case is about sending people to countries where they are not citizens.

He said in March that people cannot be sent away from their country, even if they have no other legal ways, until they have a good chance to say it would be dangerous for them.

On Wednesday, he said that sending people to Libya soon would "clearly break this Court's rule." He also told the government to give information about the plans.

The government sent Venezuelans to El Salvador. They also sent people to Panama and Costa Rica, even if they were not from those countries.

When people are sent to a country that is not their own, it brings up many questions about fair treatment. For people from El Salvador, there are questions about whether they will be hurt again.

The Trump government is looking for other countries to send people to, apart from three countries in Central America.

President Trump asked the Department of Homeland Security questions. Secretary Kristi Noem said she did not know if they planned to send people to Libya.

The government in Tripoli said on Wednesday that they did not agree with the U.S. to take people who move from one country to another. But they said other groups might have agreed to take them.

That seems to be about the other government in eastern Libya. A strong military leader named Khalifa Hifter controls this government. For many years, Libya has been divided into two parts, the east and the west, each with its own government. Armed groups and other countries help each government.

The army in eastern and southern Libya also said they did not agree to take migrants from the U.S.

It said that migrants cannot enter the areas controlled by the Libyan army, for any reason.

Many reports show that migrants held in Libya were treated very badly. U.N. investigators said they found proof of possible terrible crimes, like people being killed, hurt, made slaves, killed without a trial, and attacked sexually.

Migrants said they were often beaten and hurt. People asked their families for money to let them go. Their bodies had old and new injuries, with marks from bullets and knives on their backs, legs, arms, and faces.