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WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
The government asked for an immediate halt to lower court orders finding that people must have the chance to object before the US government deports them to countries other than their homelands.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s final ruling that migrants must have a meaningful chance to argue a third-country deportation would put them in danger of persecution or torture.<\/p>\n
The ruling didn\u2019t prohibit those deportations outright but it lengthens the process. The government argues it has already led to the cancelation of a flight carrying 70 people with criminal convictions to three different countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government has been able to remove thousands of aliens to third countries in recent months, and thousands more are eligible for such removal,\u201d Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s 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\u2019t be persecuted or tortured, attorneys said.<\/p>\n
The lower courts\u2019 legal requirements would mean cascading delays and could force the reworking of agreements with foreign countries, attorneys wrote.<\/p>\n
James Percival, the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s general counsel, said Wednesday on X that 25,000 people in the US illegally have been deported to third countries, calling those deportations \u201can essential public safety tool.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Some have found themselves in countries they\u2019d 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow my wife looks at me when I tell her we have deported 25,000 illegal aliens to third nations,\u201d Percival wrote.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n