WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump's administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to again clear the way for continued quick deportations of immigrants to third countries where they have no ties.
The government asked for an immediate halt to lower court orders finding that people must have the chance to object before the U.S. government deports them to countries other than their homelands.
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The justices previously allowed the deportation flights to temporarily continue when the case came before them last year. Since then, an appeals court has upheld a Boston-based judge’s final ruling that migrants must have a meaningful chance to argue a third-country deportation would put them in danger of persecution or torture.
The ruling didn’t prohibit those deportations outright but it lengthens the process. The government argues it has already led to the cancellation of a flight carrying 70 people with criminal convictions to three different countries.
“The government has been able to remove thousands of aliens to third countries in recent months, and thousands more are eligible for such removal,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote.
Trump's Republican administration has said that it sends people to third countries when it is unable to quickly return them to their homelands. Those third-country governments provide assurances that people won’t be persecuted or tortured, attorneys said.
The lower courts' legal requirements would mean cascading delays and could force the reworking of agreements with foreign countries, attorneys wrote.
James Percival, the Department of Homeland Security's general counsel, said Wednesday on X that 25,000 people in the U.S. illegally have been deported to third countries, calling those deportations “an essential public safety tool.”
The vast majority of the deportees have been sent to Mexico, but under a series of often-secret agreements, the administration has deported thousands of others to more than two dozen countries, from Liberia to Guyana.
Some have found themselves in countries they’d never heard of before their arrivals. Some also face serious safety risks, and are left with little choice except to return to the home countries they were fleeing.
This month, lawyers for two men deported to Equatorial Guinea said they were beaten and held at gunpoint in a hotel-turned-detention center by police who covered their heads with bags.
In his tweet, Percival included a video of Taylor Swift smiling and pointing to her wedding ring as she celebrated a touchdown by her husband, the football player Travis Kelce.
“How my wife looks at me when I tell her we have deported 25,000 illegal aliens to third nations,” Percival wrote.
The case comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by the Trump administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally.
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Tim Sullivan contributed to this report from Minneapolis. Follow the AP's coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.