SCOTUS Lets Trump Resume Deportations to ‘Third Countries’ With Little Notice

The Supreme Court Monday cleared the way for the Trump administration to resume deporting migrants to countries they are not from with minimal notice.

The court’s 6-3 ruling lifted a lower court order requiring the government to give people being removed to so-called “third-party countries” 10-days notice and a chance to object over fears of persecution or torture.

The ruling drew a scathing dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who said the court was rewarding lawlessness and undermining due process in granting President Donald Trump’s emergency request. 

“Apparently, the Court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in farflung 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,” Sotomayor wrote in a dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“Rather than allowing our lower court colleagues to manage this high-stakes litigation with the care and attention it plainly requires, this Court now intervenes to grant the Government emergency relief from an order it has repeatedly defied,” Sotomayor added. “I cannot join so gross an abuse of the Court’s equitable discretion.”

The majority did not provide an explanation for their decision, as is common with emergency applications.

Litigation over the Trump administration’s efforts to deport people to places other than their home nation will continue. However, going forward, the Trump administration will not have to provide written notice in advance of a third-country removal, as was required by District Court Judge Brian Murphy.

Last month, Murphy had determined that the Trump administration “unquestionably” violated  one of his orders by attempting to move multiple undocumented men to South Sudan, a country on the verge of civil war that the men are not citizens of and have no relation to, without giving them due process.

The men are now being held in a U.S. facility in Djibouti while the litigation continues.

In the application order, the Trump administration claimed that Murphy’s order undermined presidential authority and interfered with diplomatic efforts.

In recent weeks, Trump officials repeatedly publicly attacked Murphy and mischaracterized his orders. The criticism reached such a pitch that Murphy, in a court order, urged Trump officials to tone down their rhetoric.

“It is hard to express enough how terrible today’s decision is,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said. 

“[U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] will now send people to countries they’ve never been to or even heard of — Mexicans to South Sudan, Vietnamese to Libya, Venezuelans to Kosovo — and those people will have no right to challenge that decision.”

The court’s decision marks a departure from its recent deportation-notice rulings. For example, it ruled in April that the government must give “reasonable” notice to people subject to removals under the Alien Enemies Act.

This story has been updated with additional details.