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The Supreme Court on Thursday granted a request by the Trump administration to send eight men who have spent more than a month imprisoned on a U.S. military base in Djibouti to war-ravaged South Sudan.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
By a 7-2 vote, the justices lifted an order from U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy that had blocked the men’s expulsion to South Sudan. Murphy intervened despite a Supreme Court ruling last month that put a hold on a prior nationwide injunction he issued requiring the administration to give deportees advance notice of their destination and a “meaningful” chance to object if they believed they’d be in danger of harm.
The Trump administration accused Murphy of defying the Supreme Court, and the Justice Department asked the justices for a “clarification” that would allow the administration to expel the men.
“It will only embolden the government to further violate court orders that go against the government.”
“The United States may not deport noncitizens to a country where they are likely to be tortured or killed. International and domestic law guarantee that basic human right,” wrote Sotomayor in a bitter dissent. “In this case, the Government seeks to nullify it by deporting noncitizens to potentially dangerous countries without notice or the opportunity to assert a fear of torture.”
Neither the United States nor South Sudan has said what will happen to the men – who hail from Vietnam, South Korea, Mexico, Laos, Cuba and Myanmar; just one is from South Sudan – on their arrival. For weeks, both governments have ignored requests for comment by The Intercept.
“The Supreme Court’s ruling rewards the government’s lawlessness by violating the injunction and delaying implementation of the due process protections that district court ordered as a remedy for those violations,” said Trina Realmuto, the executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance and an attorney for the men. “It will only embolden the government to further violate court orders that go against the government.”
A source in South Sudan with high-level government connections worried that the men might be used as political pawns or abused in the country’s notorious prison system. He spoke on the condition of anonymity due the risk of government retribution.
This spring, the U.N. began warning about the potential for full-scale civil war to erupt in South Sudan. The State Department issued a “Level 4: Do Not Travel” advisory for the East African nation in March and “ordered departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel due to continued security threats in South Sudan,” warning Americans: “Do not travel to South Sudan due to crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict.”
Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could resume expelling immigrants to countries other than their own without any chance to object on the grounds that they might be tortured.
The court’s recent decisions have been a boon to the administration, which has been employing strong-arm tactics with dozens of smaller, weaker, and economically dependent nations to expand its global gulag for expelled immigrants. The administration has explored deals with a quarter of the world’s nations to accept so-called third-country nationals — deported persons who are not their citizens.
The deals are being conducted in secret, and neither the State Department nor U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will discuss them. With the green light from the Supreme Court, thousands of immigrants are in danger of being disappeared into this network of deportee dumping grounds.
“Fire up the deportation planes,” a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said after the court’s ruling on third-country deportations last month.
The eight men, who have all been convicted of serious crimes in the United States have, in many cases, served lengthy prison sentences. They have been detained at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti for weeks. They are kept under constant guard and are, according to their lawyers, shackled at the feet, except for when they shower, which is once every two days, or use the bathroom.
“What the Government wants to do, concretely, is send the eight noncitizens it illegally removed from the United States from Djibouti to South Sudan, where they will be turned over to the local authorities without regard for the likelihood that they will face torture or death,” wrote Sotomayor. “Today’s order clarifies only one thing: Other litigants must follow the rules, but the administration has the Supreme Court on speed dial.”
The post Supreme Court Lets Trump Banish Immigrants to South Sudan appeared first on The Intercept.
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