Upperhill News

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way on Monday for President Donald Trump led administration to resume deporting migrants to countries other than their own without offering them any chance to show harms they could face.

This move handed Trump another victory in his aggressive pursuit of mass deportations.

The justices lifted a judicial order that required the government to give migrants slated to be deported to so-called third countries any meaningful opportunity to tell officials they are at risk of torture at their new destination while a legal challenge plays out.

Boston-based U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy had issued the order on April 18.

The Supreme Court decision was unsigned and came with no reasoning, as is common when the high court decides emergency requests.

Opposing the judgement, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by the court’s two other liberal justices, criticized the majority’s decision, calling it a “gross abuse” of the court’s discretion.

Sotomayor warned that the court’s action exposed thousands to the risk of torture or death.

“The government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone anywhere without notice or an opportunity to be heard,” she wrote in the dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson..

U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin suggested third-country deportations could restart soon.

“Fire up the deportation planes,” she said in a statement, calling the decision “a victory for the safety and security of the American people.”

After the department moved in February to step up rapid deportations to third countries, immigrant rights groups filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of a group of migrants seeking to prevent their removal to such places without notice and a chance to assert the harms they could face.