Supreme Court allows Trump to deport migrants to third countries

The US Supreme Court has cleared the way for the Trump administration to swiftly deport certain migrants to countries they aren’t from.

The Supreme Court on Capitol Hill in Washington. Picture: AP

The US Supreme Court has cleared the way for the Trump administration to swiftly deport certain migrants to countries they aren’t from.

The court’s conservative majority stayed a lower-court order that said individuals set to be deported to third countries must be given meaningful notice of their intended destination, allowing them time to raise objections.

The Trump administration, which asked the Supreme Court to intervene, argued a trial judge had improperly interfered with the President’s authority over foreign affairs.

As is typical in emergency orders from the high court, the majority didn’t explain its reasoning. The court’s three liberals dissented and accused the majority of ignoring due-process requirements for migrants who might be sent to unfamiliar countries.

“Apparently, the court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in far-flung locales more palatable than the remote possibility that a District Court exceeded its remedial powers when it ordered the government to provide notice and process to which the plaintiffs are constitutionally and statutorily entitled,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The case involved a class of migrants who were facing final orders that allowed them to be removed from the US. The Supreme Court’s order doesn’t resolve questions about the Trump administration’s legal obligations to the migrants, which continues to be litigated in the lower courts. But it could have an immediate impact, with the administration signalling it plans to move quickly.

“DHS can now execute its lawful authority and remove illegal aliens to a country willing to accept them,” said Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin. “Fire up the deportation planes.”

Ms McLaughlin called the high court’s action “a victory for the safety and security of the American people”.

Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, whose group is representing the migrants in the case, said the order “strips away critical due process protections that have been protecting our class members from torture and death”.

The Supreme Court blocked an order from US District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston, who ruled the administration must give migrants time to raise concerns about potential persecution or fear of torture where they are being sent – with more time after that if their fears are reasonable.

That ruling was put to the test in May when immigration officials on short notice loaded a plane bound for South Sudan with eight migrants, only one of whom was born there. Trump officials have said the men were previously convicted of crimes ranging from robbery to sexual assault and murder. The administration argued the President has the authority to remove serious criminals from the US, even when their home countries are unwilling or unable to take them back.

Lawyers representing some of the men told Judge Murphy their clients did not have a fair chance to challenge their deportation to South Sudan, a politically unstable country in East Africa.

Judge Murphy, who was appointed by former president Joe Biden, agreed. In an emergency ruling while the South Sudan flight was in progress, he said the deportations violated his prior directive and ordered the government to give them an opportunity to contest their removals under international anti-torture laws – and to be prepared to return them to the US if necessary.

The plane containing the men landed in Djibouti, where the US has a military base. The administration in court filings said the migrants, along with immigration officers, have been temporarily housed in a repurposed shipping container outside the base.

Hours after the Supreme Court’s order, more legal jousting over those migrants took place in Judge Murphy’s court, leaving their fates unclear.

Deportations to countries where an individual has no ties are relatively rare, but the State Department has been in discussions with at least a dozen countries to take deportees. Last month after reports that the administration was imminently planning to deport some migrants to Libya, removals to that country were blocked by the same court.

The Supreme Court has received a flurry of emergency appeals from the Trump administration on immigration – and offered a mixed response. The court slowed Mr Trump’s efforts to invoke the Alien Enemies Act for some deportations, saying individuals designated as alien enemies are entitled to fair notice before they are removed from the country, including an opportunity to challenge their deportations before a federal judge in the district where they had been detained.

The justices later blocked the removal of a group of Venezuelan migrants held in parts of Texas, whom the administration also sought to remove under the same law.

The Wall Street Journal