Federal Judge Declares Trump’s Third-Country Deportation Policy Illegal

A Massachusetts federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration's practice of sending immigrants to countries where they have no connections violates due process rights. The judge suspended his ruling for 15 days to allow the government time to appeal.

A federal judge has declared that the Trump administration’s practice of sending immigrants to nations where they lack any connections violates the law and must be halted, according to a Wednesday ruling in a case that previously went before the Supreme Court.

Federal District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Massachusetts has given the government a 15-day window to appeal his latest decision by temporarily suspending the ruling. Murphy referenced how the Supreme Court sided with the administration last year, putting his earlier decision on hold and allowing a deportation flight carrying multiple migrants to proceed to conflict-ridden South Sudan, despite the deportees having no connections there.

According to Murphy, immigrants who are challenging the Department of Homeland Security’s approach deserve “meaningful notice” and a chance to contest their removal to a third nation before it happens. The current policy “extinguishes valid challenges to third-country removal by effecting removal before those challenges can be raised,” the judge determined.

“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 stated in his ruling.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority decided in June that immigration authorities could rapidly remove individuals to third nations. Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, both liberal justices, opposed the decision, arguing it provided preferential treatment to the government.

Murphy pointed out that the Trump administration has consistently broken or attempted to break his court orders. He highlighted how the Defense Department sent at least six individuals covered by the case to El Salvador and Mexico last March without following the procedures mandated by 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, who received his judicial appointment from Democratic President Joe Biden, explained in his decision.

The judge noted that DHS’s third-country deportation approach has focused on immigrants who had received protection against being returned to their native countries, where they faced potential torture or other forms of persecution.

According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, eight men deported to South Sudan in May had criminal convictions in the United States and faced final removal orders.