The Supreme Court on September 29 allowed the Trump administration to restart its program of removing migrants to countries other than their homeland without giving them an opportunity to raise human rights concerns, and said it would hear arguments in the case later this year.
The decision marked the third time the high court has allowed the Trump administration to enforce that effort on a temporary basis.
The court’s three liberal justices dissented from that decision. While the Trump administration can continue the program now, the court also said it would hear merits arguments in the case this December, adding a high profile immigration appeal involving the Trump administration to its docket. A decision is expected by July.
The administration launched the policy last year as part of its crackdown on immigration. The United States has at times faced difficulty attempting to deport migrants to their home countries if the leadership in those countries declines to receive them. President Donald Trump’s answer to that problem was to deport those migrants to some other country, even if the migrant had no ties to the destination.
An estimated 25,000 migrants have already been removed under the policy.
Three questions
It drew scrutiny last year after immigrant rights groups revealed that one group of migrants, initially bound for South Sudan, were being detained in Djibouti. Those migrants were held in a converted Conex shipping container.
The Supreme Court set three defined questions to decide on the merits, including whether the district court that ruled against Trump had jurisdiction to resolve the case, whether it had authority to decide it for the entire class of people affected and whether the Trump administration’s policy is lawful. It also said the Trump administration could propose “other questions” it deemed appropriate.
Trump filed an emergency appeal on September 24 seeking to pause a decision from the Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals that effectively blocked the removals. The administration had argued that time was of the essence because the appeals court decision had “created substantial logistical problems with ongoing removal operations.”
