WASHINGTON: A divided US Supreme Court paved the way on Monday for the Trump administration to resume deportations of undocumented migrants to countries that are not their own.
The unsigned order from the conservative-dominated top court came in response to an emergency appeal by the Justice Department to lift a stay imposed by a lower court on so-called third country deportations.
The Supreme Court did not provide an explanation for the decision and the three liberal justices dissented.
The original case challenging the third country deportations will now be heard by an appeals court but the Supreme Court’s move allows the removals to proceed for now.
District Judge Brian Murphy had ordered a halt to third country deportations in April, saying migrants were not being given a “meaningful opportunity” to contest their expulsions.
Murphy said they should get at least 15 days to challenge their deportation and provide evidence of whether they may be at risk of torture or death if expelled.
The original case involves the deportation of eight men — two from Myanmar, two from Cuba, a Vietnamese man, a Laotian, a Mexican and one from South Sudan — who the US authorities said were convicted violent criminals.
They were being flown to impoverished war-torn South Sudan when Murphy’s order came down and have been held since at a US military base in Djibouti.
The Trump administration has defended the third country deportations as necessary since the home nations of some of those who are targeted for removal often refuse to accept them.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, author of the dissent, accused the administration of “flagrantly unlawful conduct” that is “exposing thousands to the risk of torture or death.”
“The government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone anywhere without notice or an opportunity to be heard,“ Sotomayor said.
– ‘Fire up the deportation planes’ –
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) welcomed the Supreme Court move as a “victory for the safety and security of the American people.”
“If these activists judges had their way, aliens who are so uniquely barbaric that their own countries won’t take them back, including convicted murderers, child rapists and drug traffickers, would walk free on American streets,“ DHS said in a post on X.
“DHS can now execute its lawful authority and remove illegal aliens to a country willing to accept them,“ it said. “Fire up the deportation planes.”
Donald Trump campaigned for president promising to expel millions of undocumented migrants from the US, and he has taken a number of actions aimed at speeding up deportations since returning to the White House in January.
But his mass deportation efforts have been thwarted or stalled by numerous courts, including the Supreme Court, over concerns that migrant rights to due process are being ignored.
Murphy, an appointee of Trump’s Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, also temporarily blocked the government from expelling Asian migrants to Libya.
