WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to resume deporting migrants to countries other than their own with little or no notice, lifting a lower-court order that had required immigration authorities to give deportees a meaningful chance to argue they would face persecution or torture.
The unsigned order granted an emergency request from the administration over the dissents of the court’s three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — who said they would have denied the request but did not publish a written dissent. The court offered no explanation for its decision.
The ruling stays a decision from the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that had effectively blocked the removals. The justices said they would hear arguments on the underlying legality of the policy in December, and asked both sides to address whether the lower court had jurisdiction and authority to issue its sweeping block, and whether the administration’s policy violates immigration law or constitutional due-process protections.
The administration filed its emergency appeal on September 24, arguing that the appeals court ruling had created “substantial logistical problems” for ongoing removal operations and caused “chaos,” including forcing the cancellation of flights carrying dozens of migrants.
“For the third time in 18 months, the Supreme Court has been called upon to stay the same local district judge’s campaign to halt the Trump Administration from removing illegal aliens including many of the worst-of-the-worst criminals to countries willing to receive them,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said in a statement. “Today’s ruling from the Supreme Court yet again affirms the lawfulness of the President’s homeland security agenda.”
The court had previously reviewed the policy last year and allowed it to continue over the liberals’ dissent, and sided with the administration again in a case involving migrants held for weeks on a military base in Djibouti. According to the Washington Post, the administration has deported more than 25,000 migrants to countries that are not their own since the start of the second term, including in Latin America and Africa.
Critics of the policy argue that deportees — including people with no connection to the receiving countries — are being sent to places where they may face persecution with almost no opportunity to raise objections. The Justice Department has countered that lower courts have “tripled down” against the policy despite repeated Supreme Court decisions allowing it to proceed.