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The US Supreme Court has cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s administration to resume deportations of migrants to countries other than their homeland.
By 6-3, the justices reversed a lower court order requiring the government to give migrants a “meaningful opportunity” to tell officials what risks they might face being deported to a third country.
The court’s three liberal justices dissented from the majority ruling, saying it was “rewarding lawlessness”.
The case involves eight migrants from Myanmar, South Sudan, Cuba, Mexico, Laos and Vietnam, who were deported in May on a plane said to be heading for South Sudan. The Trump administration said they were “the worst of the worst”.
Boston-based US District Judge Brian Murphy ruled the removals had violated an order he issued in April that migrants must have a chance to argue they could be tortured or killed if they were removed to third countries – even if their other legal appeals had already failed.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson criticised the majority’s unsigned decision on Monday, calling it a “gross abuse”.
“Apparently, the court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in farflung locales more palatable than the remote possibility that a district court exceeded its remedial powers when it ordered the government to provide notice and process to which the plaintiffs are constitutionally and statutorily entitled,” Sotomayor wrote.
“That use of discretion is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable.”
The Department of Homeland Security said the ruling was “a victory for the safety and security of the American people.”
“Fire up the deportation planes,” said the agency’s spokeswoman, Tricia McLaughlin.
The Trump administration said the eight migrants had committed “heinous crimes” in the US, including murder, arson and armed robbery.
But the migrants’ lawyers said in a filing to the Supreme Court that many of the detainees had no criminal convictions.
The National Immigration Litigation Alliance, which has represented the plaintiffs, called the court’s ruling “horrifying”.
