Supreme Court Makes It Easy for Trump to Deport Anyone to South Sudan
The Supreme Court temporarily allowed the Trump administration to proceed Monday with deporting people to countries they aren’t from, such as South Sudan, without proper notice.
The 6–3 decision was split along ideological lines, with liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson all dissenting.
“In matters of life and death, it is best to proceed with caution,” the liberal justices wrote. “In this case, the Government took the opposite approach.”
The justices’ decision lifts a lower court order last month that required the government to give immigrants set for deportation to so-called “third countries,” or countries they have no connection to, at least 15 days’ notice to challenge the decision based on “credible fear.” Donald Trump had immediately appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, asking them to make it easier for him to deport people without proper due process. Monday’s decision by the Supreme Court is a hold on the lower court’s previous order while the case fully plays out in lower courts.
The decision focuses on a group of eight immigrant men from various countries—including Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, and Mexico—who were all boarded on a deportation flight headed to South Sudan. As the case played out in the courts, the flight halted in Djibouti, where the men have been trapped since April in a temporary base made out of a shipping container, along with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents overseeing their deportation.
For now, Trump has achieved a massive victory allowing him to speed up his deportations, sending people to just about anywhere he wants.