The Trump administration is urging the Supreme Court to restore its authority to deport illegal aliens to Safe Third Countries when their home nations refuse to take them back.
According to Breitbart, Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed an emergency application Thursday asking the justices to freeze a February decision by U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, a Biden appointee, who invalidated the Department of Homeland Securitys third-country removal policy. The 42-page filing marks the third time President Donald Trumps team has brought this dispute before the high court, underscoring how central the policy is to restoring order at the border.
The Safe Third Countries at issue are nations that do not appear on a migrants original removal order but are willing to accept deportees. The administration has turned to these partners because many foreign governments simply refuse to repatriate their own citizens, effectively turning the United States into a dumping ground.
Sauer told the justices the policy has been in place for 15 months and has already removed thousands of detainees from the country, with thousands more eligible for transfer. He described the targeted population as some of the worst of the worst criminal aliens whose home countries will not accept them, highlighting the public-safety stakes of the legal fight.
After Murphys ruling took effect, DHS was forced to cancel a flight to three separate countries that was set to carry 70 deportees, some with criminal records. Sauer warned that with the order back in force, the government could not carry out removals at all, effectively tying the hands of federal immigration authorities.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals had upheld most of Murphys decision on Sept. 18 but initially paused its impact. Late Wednesday, after migrant advocates flagged a planned flight to several African nations, the appeals court abruptly lifted that pause, instantly reviving Murphys injunction.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who oversees emergency matters from the First Circuit, is now managing the high-stakes dispute. She has given lawyers for the migrants until 4 p.m. Monday to respond, setting up a rapid timeline for the Courts next move.
Trina Realmuto of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance argued that the appeals court had already resolved the legal questions and accused the administration of trying to send people to countries where they face life-threatening conditions. Human rights groups claim more than 25,000 migrants have been deported to 29 countries under the policy, most of them to Mexico, even as critics of open borders note that such transfers are often the only way to enforce immigration law when home nations stonewall.
Marco Rubios State Department has struck Safe Third Country agreements with up to 31 nations, largely in Africa and Latin America, backed by at least $410 million in authorized or pledged funds through the end of June. The Supreme Court has already sided with the administration twice in this case, and its next decision will determine whether the United States can continue using diplomatic leverage and third-country partnerships to remove dangerous criminal aliens when their own governments refuse to act.
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