A federal judge has struck down the Trump administration’s effort to deport immigrants to so called “third countries” where they have no personal or legal ties, declaring the practice unlawful in a case that has already made its way to the Supreme Court.
U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy of Massachusetts ruled Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security’s policy cannot stand. He agreed, however, to put his decision on hold for 15 days to give the government an opportunity to appeal.
The dispute returns to familiar terrain. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the administration by pausing an earlier ruling from Murphy. That intervention allowed a deportation flight carrying several migrants to proceed to South Sudan, a country plagued by conflict and one to which the migrants had no connection.
In his latest opinion, Murphy emphasized that migrants challenging the policy are entitled to “meaningful notice” and a fair chance to contest their removal before being sent to another country. By moving people out of the United States before their objections can be heard, he wrote, the policy “extinguishes valid challenges to third-country removal by effecting removal before those challenges can be raised.”
“These are our laws, and it is with profound gratitude for the unbelievable luck of being born in the United States of America that this Court affirms these and our nation’s bedrock principle: that no ‘person’ in this country may be ‘deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,’” Murphy wrote.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority concluded in June that immigration authorities may rapidly deport individuals to third countries. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, arguing that the ruling afforded the government special treatment.
Murphy also accused President Donald Trump’s administration of disregarding or attempting to sidestep his prior directives. He pointed to a March episode in which the Defense Department deported at least six members of a certified class to El Salvador and Mexico without providing the procedural safeguards required under a temporary restraining order he had issued. Two days after that order, DHS released new guidance on third-country removals.
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“The simple reality is that nobody knows the merits of any individual class member’s claim because (administration officials) are withholding the predicate fact: the country of removal,” wrote Murphy, who was appointed to the federal bench by Democratic President Joe Biden.
According to the ruling, the third-country policy has disproportionately affected immigrants who had already secured protection from removal to their home nations due to fears of torture or other persecution.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have said that eight men flown to South Sudan in May had criminal convictions in the United States and were subject to final removal orders.
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