Supreme Court Lets Trump Banish Immigrants to South Sudan

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 - 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 maintained they d be in danger of harm The Trump administration accused Murphy of defying the Supreme Court and the Justice Department requested the justices for a clarification that would allow the administration to expel the men It will only embolden the authorities to further violate court orders that go against the regime 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 occurrence the Governing body 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 revealed 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 establishment s lawlessness by violating the injunction and delaying implementation of the due process protections that district court ordered as a remedy for those violations commented Trina Realmuto the executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance and an attorney for the men It will only embolden the executive to further violate court orders that go against the establishment Related ICE Official Reveals Miserable Conditions for U S Immigrants at Djibouti Prison A source in South Sudan with high-level regime 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 menace of authorities retribution This spring the U N began warning about the expected for full-scale civil war to erupt in South Sudan The State Department issued a Level Do Not Advance advisory for the East African nation in March and ordered departure of non-emergency U S leadership personnel due to continued protection threats in South Sudan warning Americans Do not voyage 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 new 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 Related Trump Is Building a Global Gulag for Immigrants Captured by ICE 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 configuration of deportee dumping grounds Fire up the deportation planes a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Precaution explained 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 a large number of 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 Ruling body 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 agents without regard for the likelihood that they will face torture or death wrote Sotomayor At present 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