President Donald Trump’s administration has asked the US Supreme Court to let it deport migrants to other countries without giving them any warning or chance to explain why they might be in danger.
The request is part of the president’s push to speed up deportations and crack down on immigration.
The Justice Department requested that the justices lift Boston-based US District Judge Brian Murphy’s nationwide injunction, which requires that migrants be allowed to seek legal relief from deportation before they are sent to so-called “third countries,” while litigation in the case continues.
The administration said in its filing that the third-country process is critical to removing migrants who commit crimes, as their countries of origin are often unwilling to take them back.
“As a result, criminal aliens are often allowed to stay in the United States for years on end, victimising law-abiding Americans in the meantime,” it told the justices.
The filing marked the administration’s latest appeal to the country’s highest court as it seeks greater freedom to enforce Trump’s hardline immigration policies and challenge lower court decisions that have blocked them.
The administration argued that Murphy’s injunction is holding up potentially thousands of deportations. It said the ruling “disrupts sensitive diplomatic, foreign policy, and national security efforts.”
In February, the Department of Homeland Security initiated an investigation to determine whether individuals granted protection against removal to their home countries could be detained and sent to a third country instead.
In March, the administration issued guidance stating that if a third country offers credible diplomatic assurances that it will not persecute or torture migrants, individuals may be deported there “without the need for further procedures.”
Without such assurance, if the migrant expresses fear of removal to that country, US authorities would assess the risk of persecution or torture, possibly referring the person to an immigration court.
Judge Murphy issued a preliminary injunction in April, finding that the policy of “executing third-country removals without providing notice and a meaningful opportunity to present fear-based claims” likely violates the due process protections under the US Constitution’s Fifth Amendment. These protections generally require the government to provide notice and a hearing before taking significant actions.
Murphy said that the Supreme Court, Congress, “common sense,” and “basic decency” all demand that migrants be given adequate due process.
On May 16, the Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals declined to pause Murphy’s decision.
On May 21, Murphy ruled that the administration had violated his order by attempting to deport migrants to South Sudan.
The migrants, now held at a military base in Djibouti, had all committed “heinous crimes” in the US, including murder, arson, and armed robbery, according to the administration.
“As a result, the United States has been put to the intolerable choice of holding these aliens for additional proceedings at a military facility on foreign soil — where each day of their continued confinement risks grave harm to American foreign policy — or bringing these convicted criminals back to America,” the Justice Department said.
Murphy also ordered that non-citizens be given at least 10 days to raise claims that they fear for their safety.
That argument followed the government’s admission that the Defence Department had flown four Venezuelans held at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to El Salvador after Murphy’s original ruling.
