The US Supreme Court has given the Trump administration the green light to resume deportations of migrants to third countries, i.e. countries other than their countries of origin, including the fearsome South Sudan.
With six votes in favor and three against, the judges suspended the decision of US District Judge Brian Murphy, who had ruled that the government’s attempts to deport migrants without due process “unquestionably” violated constitutional protections.
The court’s three progressive judges—Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—criticized their colleagues’ decision. Sotomayor, expressing her dissent, said that the judges in favor were “rewarding lawlessness,” asserting that the Trump administration had “openly violated” previous court orders.
The Department of Homeland Security, on the other hand, said the ruling was “a victory for the safety and security of the American people.” In a lighthearted tone, agency spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said, “Fire up the deportation planes”.
The case has been the subject of increasing attention from immigrant rights groups after they revealed that a group of migrants, initially bound for South Sudan, had been detained by the United States at a military base in Djibouti and had been unable to contact their lawyers. The eight migrants were from Myanmar, South Sudan, Cuba, Mexico, Laos, and Vietnam.
The Trump administration claimed that the migrants had committed “heinous crimes” in the United States, including murder, arson, and armed robbery. However, the migrants’ lawyers stated in a document submitted to the Supreme Court that many of the detainees had no criminal convictions.
“These individuals are stranded incommunicado in Djibouti, a country of which they have no knowledge, and en route to another country, South Sudan, where none have ever set foot,” the National Immigration Litigation Alliance and other groups told the court.
Humanitarian organizations describe the situation in South Sudan as dire. The United Nations recently sounded the alarm about food insecurity in the country, which is also facing political instability and escalating violence.
The Trump administration, for its part, has stated that in cases where it receives “assurances” from a foreign government that a deported migrant will not be tortured, it will not be required to notify a migrant of the location to which they will be deported. In cases where the government has not received such assurances, DHS policies require that the migrant be informed so that they can file a complaint for fear of torture.
In a new order on Monday evening, Murphy said his May 21 directive remained “fully valid and effective” despite the Supreme Court’s decision. That order required the government to grant the migrants in question “a reasonable fear interview in private, with the opportunity for the individual to have counsel of their choosing present during the interview.”
