The US Supreme Court has approved the resumption of deportations of migrants to other countries without allowing the deportees to demonstrate the harm they may face in the receiving countries. The court’s decision is another victory for US President Donald Trump in his quest for mass deportations, US media reported on Tuesday.
On June 23, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s request to overturn a court order requiring migrants subject to deportation to “third countries” to have a “substantial opportunity” to inform US authorities that they face violence in their new destination.
The administration appealed to the Supreme Court to intervene after the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston refused on May 16 to suspend Judge Brian Murphy’s ruling. He issued the order on April 18.
On Monday, the Supreme Court voted six to three in favour of the decision. Judge Sonia Sotomayor, joined by two other liberal judges, called the decision a “gross abuse” of the court’s authority. She said that “the idea that thousands of people will be subjected to violence in remote locations” seemed acceptable to the court.
Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, called the consequences of the court’s decision “horrifying.” She said immigrants had been deprived of “critical procedural safeguards that protected our plaintiffs from torture and death.”
In April, Judge Murphy concluded that the Trump administration’s policy of “deporting people to third countries without notice and without providing a meaningful opportunity to assert their concerns” violated the constitutional right to due process.
On 21 May, Murphy found that the Trump administration had violated his order by attempting to send a group of migrants to South Sudan, a country that the State Department advises against travelling to “due to crime, kidnapping and armed conflict.”
The White House told the Supreme Court that its policy toward third countries complies with due process and is essential to removing migrants who commit crimes, as their countries of origin often do not want to take them back. The statement said that all migrants bound for South Sudan had committed “serious crimes” in the US, including murder, arson and armed robbery.
