In a controversial 5‑4 decision Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration may resume deportations of migrants to countries other than their nations of origin, overturning a lower court’s injunction.
The court’s order halts a Massachusetts judge’s ruling that migrants should be allowed to challenge deportation to third-party countries. Third-party countries are countries from whence the immigrant did not come.
The administration is using this latest victory as a way to further drive home the power of the president.
“The Constitution and Congress have vested authority in the President to enforce immigration laws and remove dangerous aliens from the homeland,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said. The Supreme Court’s action “reaffirms the President’s authority to remove criminal illegal aliens from our country and Make America Safe Again.”
However, in a 19-page dissent co-signed by Justices Kagan and Jackson, Justice Sotomayor did not hold back in her opinion that the court’s ruling may render the government “unconstrained.”
“The government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone anywhere without notice or an opportunity to be heard,” she wrote in the dissent.
U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy ruled in April that immigrants have the opportunity to argue deportation to a third country would put them in danger — even if they have exhausted their legal appeals. Thus, the May flight that was planned was a direct violation of the previous court order.
Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling on these deportations, the May flight that was scheduled to take immigrants from Myanmar, Vietnam and Cuba to South Sudan has been diverted to a naval base in Djibouti and will remain there indefinitely.
The administration has reached agreements with other countries, including Panama and Costa Rica, to house immigrants because some countries do not accept their citizens deported from the U.S.
