Assistant Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the deportation flight carrying the deportees landed in South Sudan just before midnight EST on Friday.

U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss issued an administrative stay Friday morning temporarily blocking the deportations in response to a lawsuit filed late Thursday night on behalf of the eight men, who have spent the last six weeks in a shipping container on a U.S. military base in Djibouti amid a legal tug-of-war over their fate.

The court’s order followed a broader one last month allowing removals to countries with which migrants have no connections.