US Supreme Court\u2019s action prompts sharp dissent from its three liberal justices
\n Washington
\nThe United States Supreme Court cleared the way on Monday for President Donald Trump\u2019s administration to resume deporting migrants to countries other than their own without offering them a chance to show the harms they could face, handing him another victory in his aggressive pursuit of mass deportations.
\nIn an action that prompted a sharp dissent from its three liberal justices, the court granted the administration\u2019s request to lift a judicial order requiring that migrants set for deportation to so-called \u201cthird countries\u201d get a \u201cmeaningful opportunity\u201d to tell US officials they are at risk of torture at their new destination, while a legal challenge plays out.
\nBoston-based US District Judge Brian Murphy had issued the order on April 18.
\nThe Supreme Court\u2019s brief order was unsigned and offered no reasoning, as is common when it decides emergency requests. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority.
\nJustice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by the two other liberal justices, called the decision a \u201cgross abuse\u201d of the court\u2019s power.
\n\u201cApparently, 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,\u201d Sotomayor wrote.
\nSotomayor called the court\u2019s action \u201cas incomprehensible as it is inexcusable.\u201d
\nMurphy had found that the administration\u2019s policy of \u201cexecuting third-country removals without providing notice and a meaningful opportunity to present fear-based claims\u201d likely violates the US Constitution\u2019s due process protections.
\nDue process generally requires the government to provide notice and an opportunity for a hearing before taking certain adverse actions.
\nAfter the Department of Homeland Security moved in February to step up rapid deportations to third countries, immigrant rights groups filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of a group of migrants seeking to prevent their removal to such places without notice and to gain chance to assert the harms they could face.
\nMurphy on May 21 found the Trump administration violated his order requiring additional steps before attempting to send a group of migrants to politically unstable South Sudan, which the US State Department has urged Americans to avoid \u201cdue to crime, kidnapping and armed conflict.\u201d
\nThe judge\u2019s intervention prompted the US government to keep the migrants at a military base in Djibouti.
\nAfter the US Supreme Court ruling, Murphy in a court order made clear that his decision preventing the rapid deportation of eight men to South Sudan \u201cremains in full force and effect.\u201d
\nTrina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, which helps represent the plaintiffs, called the ramifications of the court\u2019s action \u201chorrifying,\u201d stripping away \u201ccritical due process protections that have been protecting our class members from torture and death.\u201d
\nThe administration told the Supreme Court that its third-country policy already complied with due process and is critical for removing migrants who commit crimes because their countries of origin are often unwilling to take them back. It said that all the South Sudan-destined migrants had committed \u201cheinous crimes\u201d in the United States including murder, arson and armed robbery.
\n\u201cThe Supreme Court\u2019s stay of a left-wing district judge\u2019s injunction reaffirms the president\u2019s authority to remove criminal illegal aliens from our country and Make America Safe Again,\u201d White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said after Monday\u2019s decision.
\n\u201cFire up the deportation planes,\u201d said Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.
\nA flood of cases
\nThe dispute is one of many legal challenges to Trump policies to have reached the nation\u2019s highest judicial body since he returned to office in January.
\nThe Supreme Court in May let Trump end humanitarian programs for hundreds of thousands of migrants to live and work in the United States temporarily.
\nThe justices, however, faulted the administration\u2019s treatment of some migrants whom Trump targeted for removal under the Alien Enemies Act \u2014 a 1798 law that historically has been employed only in wartime \u2014 as inadequate under constitutional due process protections.
\nSotomayor said that in sending migrants to South Sudan, and in another instance four others to the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and on to El Salvador, the administration \u201copenly flouted two court orders\u201d issued by Murphy.
\nSotomayor also pointed to the separate Alien Enemies Act litigation in which questions were raised about the administration\u2019s compliance with an order issued by a judge in that case.
\n\u201cThis is not the first time the court closes its eyes to noncompliance, nor, I fear, will it be the last,\u201d Sotomayor wrote. \u201cYet each time this court rewards noncompliance with discretionary relief, it further erodes respect for courts and for the rule of law.\u201d The administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene after the Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals on May 16 declined to put Murphy\u2019s decision on hold. Reuters has also reported that US officials had been considering sending migrants to Libya, another politically unstable country, despite previous US condemnation of Libya\u2019s harsh treatment of detainees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US Supreme Court\u2019s action prompts sharp dissent from its three liberal justices Washington The United States Supreme Court cleared the way on Monday for President Donald Trump\u2019s administration to resume deporting migrants to countries other than their own without offering them a chance to show the harms they could face, handing him another victory in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486370,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-486368","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n