The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for the Trump administration to deport a group of migrants with criminal records held at a U.S. naval base in Djibouti, clarifying the scope of its earlier order that lifted restrictions on removals to countries that are not deportees' places of origin.
The high court's follow-up ruling came after it paused a federal judge's April injunction that prevented the Trump administration from deporting migrants to so-called third countries without first giving them notice of the destination and a chance to contest their deportation there by raising fears of torture, persecution or death.
Soon after that order by the Supreme Court last month, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy said that a decision he issued in May requiring the Trump administration to provide interviews with U.S. asylum officers to the men detained in Djibouti before removing them to South Sudan remained "in full force and effect."
Those men — who hail from Latin America and Asia, and have been convicted of serious crimes in the U.S. — have been held at the Djibouti base for weeks after Murphy ordered the Department of Homeland Security to retain custody of them. The Trump administration has described deplorable and dangerous conditions faced by the personnel sent to guard the men in Djibouti, including concerns about malaria, rocket attacks, inadequate security protocols and triple-digit outdoor temperatures.
Murphy issued his order in May after finding that the Trump administration violated his initial injunction when it attempted to swiftly remove the migrants to South Sudan with less than 24 hours' notice and no chance to raise fear-based claims. The world's youngest country, South Sudan remains plagued by violence and political instability, with the State Department warning Americans not to travel there.
According to the Justice Department, the State Department has received "credible diplomatic assurances" from South Sudan that the migrants will not be subject to torture.
The Supreme Court on Thursday said Murphy's May order "cannot now be used to enforce an injunction that our stay rendered unenforceable," referring to the April injunction from Murphy that the high court paused last month. Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a concurring statement that, while she opposed the Supreme Court's initial pause, "I do not see how a district court can compel compliance with an order that this Court has stayed."
In a dissent that was joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the high court's majority was effectively allowing the Trump administration to pursue "unlawful ends," expressing concern about the safety of the deportees.
Posted by John3262005
8 Comments
Can we deport Supreme Court justices to Sudan? Asking for a friend
Isn’t this realistically the death penalty?
Like before, there’s gonna be a lot of “it’s just a stay” copium – why would SCOTUS stay this unless they thought the ultimate behavior was ok? The final ruling (if it won’t be rendered moot) is going to be favorable to POTUS.
Maybe it’s because I’m some bleeding heart liberal with at least an ounce of empathy, but I don’t think we should be deporting people to countries that we have to seek assurances that they won’t torture the people we send them.
I guess that’s a controversial opinion in 2025.
Dems need to already be talking about consequences for countries that comply with this
Let’s not mince words.
This is legalized genocide.
Sending people to South Sudan with no protection is borderline indistinguishable from sending them into a desert without water. Deaths and conditions that will cause death are not just possible, they are as inevitable as the impact at the bottom if you shoved them off a cliff.
Trump is going to use the threat of extermination to punish anyone, even American citizens, who resist the second part of his plan: Detain millions of people, then sell them as slave labour that cannot possibly resist because if they do, if they do much as speak a word of resistance, they and their families are dumped in South Sudan with no recourse. They are going to expand all the abuses of prison labour, but to people whose crime is being alive that they never need to release, who they can deny any of the protections of citizenship.
I have two questions:
1) I know the majority didn’t even bother to explain itself, but can anyone understand what legal argument could even be made to justify these deportations? Allowing these deportations to go through seems like a clear violation of laws cited in [DHS v DVD](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a1153_l5gm.pdf).
2) How does someone condemn deportees to a war zone like this, and then go home to their families? Are these Justices that lacking in any kind of empathy? I can’t imagine myself ordering something like that, especially without bothering to explain why.
This is the start of a genocide. They are building the framework. They are building the infrastructure. They are hiring any fascist who can fog a mirror and setting them out with no oversight to arrest innocent people, put them into internment camps, then send them abroad to be killed.
The question you need to be asking yourself is what you can do about it. We are past the point of fretting over messaging and efficacy. You have a moral imperative to do what you can, *anything* you can to stop this. History is watching all of us. What will you tell your children you did when the killing started?