US Supreme Court temporarily clears Trump third-country deportations

The US Supreme Court has temporarily allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to deport migrants to countries other than their own while the justices consider the legality of the policy. The apparent 6-3 order lifts, for now, requirements imposed by lower courts that migrants be given an opportunity to object before being sent to countries with which they have no ties. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have left the lower-court order in place.

The court is due to hear arguments in December. It said the case would address whether the policy is lawful and whether lower courts had authority to consider the case and issue a broad block. Other questions proposed by the government may also be considered.

The administration said a lower-court order had forced the cancellation of a deportation flight carrying about 70 people to three countries. Federal lawyers argue that third-country removals are used when migrants cannot be returned to their homelands or when those countries will not accept them, including some people with criminal convictions. Attorney General Todd Blanche described the policy as a lawful and important immigration-enforcement tool.

Federal lawyers said receiving governments provide assurances that deportees will not be persecuted or tortured. Immigration lawyers disputed that account. Trina Realmuto of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance said the order allowed the administration to send people to countries where they could face persecution, torture, imprisonment or other grave danger.

She stressed that the order did not determine whether the policy was lawful. The administration has deported about 25,000 people to more than two dozen countries under often-secret agreements, according to the supplied material. Lawyers representing migrants said some had been imprisoned in countries they did not know and that some faced serious risks despite having no criminal convictions.