The US Supreme Court again sided with President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday in a legal fight over deporting migrants to countries other than their own, lifting limits a judge had imposed to protect eight men who the government sought to send to politically unstable South Sudan.
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called the decision a "win for the rule of law, safety and security of the American people" and said the men would "be in South Sudan" by Friday.
The court on June 23 put on hold Boston-based U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy's April 18 injunction requiring migrants set for removal to so-called "third countries" where they have no ties to be given a chance to tell officials that they are at risk of torture there, while a legal challenge plays out.
The justices on Thursday granted a Justice Department request to clarify that their June 23 decision also extended to Murphy's separate May 21 ruling that the administration had violated his injunction in attempting to send a group of migrants to South Sudan. The U.S. State Department has urged Americans to avoid the African nation "due to crime, kidnapping and armed conflict."
The court said that Murphy should now "cease enforcing the April 18 injunction through the May 21 remedial order."
"The Supreme Court's ruling rewards the government for violating the injunction and delaying implementation of the remedy the district court ordered," said Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, which helps represent the plaintiffs.
"Eight men are now at imminent risk of deportation to perilous and unsafe conditions in South Sudan," Realmuto said.
Two liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from Thursday's decision.
"Today's order clarifies only one thing: Other litigants must follow the rules, but the administration has the Supreme Court on speed dial," Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion.
Fellow liberal Justice Elena Kagan, who dissented from the court's decision to lift Murphy's injunction, nevertheless agreed with the decision on Thursday. "I do not see how a district court can compel compliance with an order that this court has stayed," Kagan wrote.
The administration has said its third-country policy is critical for removing migrants who commit crimes because their countries of origin are often unwilling to take them back.
Murphy found that the administration's policy of "executing third-country removals without providing notice and a meaningful opportunity to present fear-based claims" likely violates due process requirements under the US Constitution. Due process generally requires the government to provide notice and an opportunity for a hearing before taking certain adverse actions.
The judge's May 21 order mandating further procedures for the South Sudan-destined migrants prompted the U.S. government to keep the migrants at a military base in Djibouti.
After the Supreme Court lifted Murphy's April injunction on June 23, the judge promptly ruled that his May 21 order "remains in full force and effect." Calling that ruling by the judge a "lawless act of defiance," the Justice Department the next day urged the Supreme Court to clarify that its action applied to Murphy's May 21 decision as well.
Even as it accused the judge of defying the Supreme Court, the administration itself has been accused of violating judicial orders including in the third-country deportation litigation.
"Today's decision makes clear it is district court judges who are defying Supreme Court orders, not the Trump administration. This decision is a clear rebuke of such judicial overreach," White House David Warrington said on Thursday.
After the Department of Homeland Security moved in February to step up rapid deportations to third countries, immigrant rights groups filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of a group of migrants seeking to prevent their removal to such places without notice and a chance to assert the harms they could face.
In March, the administration issued guidance providing that if a third country has given credible diplomatic assurance that it will not persecute or torture migrants, individuals may be deported there "without the need for further procedures."
The Justice Department said in a filing that the United States has received credible diplomatic assurances from South Sudan that the migrants at issue will not be subject to torture.
The Supreme Court has let Trump implement some contentious immigration policies while the fight over their legality continues to play out. In two decisions in May, it let Trump end humanitarian programs for hundreds of thousands of migrants to live and work in the United States temporarily. The justices, however, faulted the administration's treatment of some migrants as inadequate under constitutional due process protections.
