Court lifts limits on US’ third-country deportations

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted restrictions on the deportations of immigrants to countries that are not their own, while agreeing to hear the issue on its merits in December.

The conservative-dominated high court granted an emergency request by US President Donald Trump’s administration to suspend a lower court ruling that restricted, but did not outright ban, so-called “third-country removals.”

The lower court had said people targeted with deportation must be given effective notice ahead of time about where they are being sent to allow them to raise concerns about potential persecution.

The US Supreme Court in Washington is pictured on Friday last week.

Photo: Reuters

The three liberal justices on the nine-member bench said they would not have granted the administration’s request.

Trump campaigned on promises to expel millions of undocumented migrants from the US and has taken several actions aimed at speeding up deportations since returning to the White House last year.

The Trump administration has defended third-country deportations as necessary since the home nations of some of those who are targeted for removal sometimes refuse to accept them.

In a brief to the Supreme Court, opponents of lifting the restrictions argued that the lower court ruling did not fully block all third-country deportations, “it simply requires them to do so lawfully.”

Meanwhile, US Solicitor General John Sauer told the court that the rapid deportation to third countries was “an essential tool to remove certain aliens, including some of the worst criminal aliens.”

The lower court ruling “created substantial logistical problems” with removals, he said.

The US has offered multimillion-dollar deals and threatened visa restrictions to get “third countries,” especially in Africa, to take such deportees, an Agence France-Presse investigation found.

Once in these countries — and outside US jurisdiction — deportees have been subject to abuse by local guards, indefinite detention, or quickly re-deported to their home countries.

The US has deported more than 25,000 people under secretive agreements with 35 countries to take migrants with no ties to those nations, an investigation published last week showed.