A Boston federal district judge voided the Trump administration’s policy of sending immigrants to “third countries” that are not their countries of origin, ruling it is unconstitutional.
“It’s not fine, nor is it legal,” Judge Brian Murphy wrote in his 81-page ruling Wednesday. The class-action lawsuit was brought by four plaintiffs, including two in Massachusetts, and covers detained immigrants.
The order, which will likely be appealed by the Department of Homeland Security, says detained immigrants are entitled to meaningful notice and a chance to contest a third-country deportation. The government, wrote Murphy, must first try to deport immigrants to their home countries.
The Trump administration’s policy has been in effect since last March, allowing immigration officers to remove immigrants to “third countries” without giving them a chance to contest their removal.
Murphy issued a preliminary injunction last year that temporarily paused the policy, but it went back into effect last June.
Officials placed at least six class members on a flight to South Sudan last year — which the judge called a “willful violation” of his previous order. That incident made international news when it was revealed in court filings that the men were held in a conference room in a converted shipping container in Djibouti.
“The court recognized that the government continues to flout the due process rights of class members by deporting them without notice or any opportunity to seek protection from persecution or torture,” said Trina Realmuto, a lawyer for the plaintiffs who leads the Brookline-based National Immigration Litigation Alliance.
Attorneys for the government have argued that immigration officers don’t need to give immigrants the opportunity to contest their removal as long as the government is told by that country that they won’t be tortured.
“So long as the Department doesn’t already know that there’s someone standing there waiting to shoot ... that’s fine,” an attorney for the government said at a previous hearing.
Murphy extensively referred back to those assurances from other governments in his order.
“Nobody really knows anything about these purported ‘assurances,’” wrote Murphy. “Whom do they cover? What do they cover? Why has the Government deemed them credible? How can anyone even know for certain they exist? These are basic questions that the Constitution permits a person to ask before the Government takes away their last and only lifeline.”
Murphy paused the order for 15 days to give the administration time to appeal. Realmuto anticipates the government will appeal the order and litigate all the way to the Supreme Court.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said in an email, “The Supreme Court previously issued two separate emergency stays against Judge Brian Murphy in this case, and we are confident we will be vindicated again. The Biden Administration allowed millions of illegal aliens to flood our country, and the Trump Administration has the constitutional authority to remove these criminal illegal aliens and clean up this national security nightmare.”
“DHS must be allowed to execute its lawful authority and remove illegal aliens to a country willing to accept them,” the spokesperson said.
