Trump’s Third-Country Deportations Are Unlawful, Federal Judge Rules

A recent Department of Homeland Security policy that allows immigrants to be deported to countries that aren’t their own could put them in danger and is unlawful, a federal judge has ruled.

The department must not remove migrants to so-called “third countries,” U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy said in his ruling on Wednesday, Feb. 25. The practice, Murphy said, amounts to dropping people off in “parts unknown” and, “as long as the Department doesn’t already know that there’s someone standing there waiting to shoot … that’s fine.”

{snip}

Wednesday’s ruling came in a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of migrants facing deportation to countries not previously named in their removal orders or identified in their immigration court proceedings. The policy allows migrants to be deported to such countries if immigration authorities either have credible diplomatic assurances that they will not be persecuted or tortured if sent there, or have given the migrants as little as six hours of notice that they are being sent to such a place.

Murphy further criticized the Department of Homeland Security’s removal policy for failing to require immigration officers to give a person notice or an opportunity to object before removing them to “an unfamiliar and potentially dangerous country” as long as the government has gotten “assurances” that they won’t be exposed to torture or persecution.

{snip}

Murphy, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, suspended his order for 15 days to give the department time to appeal the case, which observers believe is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court.

{snip}