US Supreme Court clears path for Trump's third-country deportation plan

The US Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to resume swift deportations of migrants to third countries, even when those countries are not the migrants’ homelands.

The decision, issued without a full explanation, lifts a lower court’s order that had temporarily blocked the removals.

The court’s conservative majority did not elaborate on its reasoning, as is common for emergency rulings.

All three liberal justices dissented, warning that the decision could put lives at risk.

The case stems from a May incident in which US officials put eight foreign nationals —originally from Myanmar, Vietnam, and Cuba — on a flight to South Sudan, despite a standing court order requiring they be allowed to challenge their removal.

US District Judge Brian E. Murphy had ruled that deporting individuals to a country other than their own without proper legal review could violate US obligations under international anti-torture laws.

In response to Murphy’s order, the plane was diverted to a US naval base in Djibouti, where the migrants were held in makeshift quarters.

The Supreme Court’s ruling does not overturn Murphy’s broader concern that migrants be given a meaningful opportunity to argue that deportation to a third country would place them at serious risk.

However, the decision allows the government to resume such deportations while legal proceedings continue.

In a sharply worded dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that the ruling could leave "thousands exposed to the risk of torture or death."

"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," Sotomayor wrote in a 19-page dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The Trump administration has signed agreements with countries, including Panama and Costa Rica, to receive deportees when their home countries refuse them.

In a separate case, the Supreme Court had previously blocked deportations to El Salvador while lower courts determined how much time migrants should be granted to file legal challenges.

Judge Murphy, a Biden appointee, previously intervened in another high-profile case, ordering the return of a Guatemalan man who had been deported to Mexico, where he said he was abused.

That man, identified in court documents as O.C.G., is believed to be the first migrant returned to US custody after deportation under Trump’s renewed immigration clampdown.

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Source: TRT