By yourNEWS Media Newsroom,
A federal judge in Massachusetts ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration’s policy of deporting immigrants to so-called “third countries” where they have no prior ties is unlawful and must be set aside, marking the latest development in a case that has already reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy ordered that the policy be invalidated but agreed to suspend his decision for 15 days to allow the government time to appeal.
Murphy previously issued an order blocking removals under the policy, but the Supreme Court last year ruled in the administration’s favor, pausing his earlier decision and permitting a deportation flight carrying several migrants to South Sudan to proceed. The migrants reportedly had no ties to that country.
In his latest ruling, Murphy said migrants challenging the Department of Homeland Security’s third-country removal policy are entitled to “meaningful notice” and an opportunity to object before being sent to another nation.
The policy, he wrote, “extinguishes valid challenges to third-country removal by effecting removal before those challenges can be raised.”
“These are our laws, and it is with profound gratitude for the unbelievable luck of being born in the United States of America that this Court affirms these and our nation’s bedrock principle: that no ‘person’ in this country may be ‘deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,’” Murphy wrote.
The judge said the administration has repeatedly violated or attempted to violate his previous orders. He cited an incident last March in which the Defense Department deported at least six individuals covered under the class action to El Salvador and Mexico without providing the process required under a temporary restraining order he had issued.
“The simple reality is that nobody knows the merits of any individual class member’s claim because (administration officials) are withholding the predicate fact: the country of removal,” Murphy wrote.
Murphy, who was nominated to the bench by then-President Joe Biden, stated that the third-country removal policy has targeted immigrants who had previously been granted protection from being returned to their home countries due to fears of torture or persecution.
In June, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority concluded that immigration officials could quickly deport individuals to third countries. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, arguing that the ruling afforded the government special treatment in immigration enforcement cases.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have said that eight men deported to South Sudan in May had been convicted of crimes in the United States and had final orders of removal.
The Department of Homeland Security has not yet publicly commented on Wednesday’s ruling.
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