The Supreme Court just handed President Trump a huge victory on the issue of deporting illegal immigrants to third party countries.
In short, the high court ruled 6-3 to lift an injunction from a lower court Biden-appointed federal judge and the case will now go back down to the appeals court.
Here’s more from The Hill:
The Supreme Court on Monday lifted judge-imposed limits on the Trump administration’s ability to deport migrants to countries where they have no ties over a scathing dissent from the court’s liberal justices.
The administration warned U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy’s injunction was endangering immigration officials stuck in Djibouti guarding a group of convicted criminals, who were destined for South Sudan until Murphy blocked the flight.
The majority did not explain its reasoning to lift the ruling. In a 19-page dissent, the three liberal justices said their colleagues were “rewarding lawlessness.”
“Apparently, the Court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in farflung locales more palatable than the remote possibility that a District Court exceeded its remedial powers when it ordered the Government to provide notice and process to which the plaintiffs are constitutionally and statutorily entitled,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote.
“That use of discretion is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable,” she continued, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The case will now return to an appeals court, and it could ultimately return to the justices on their normal docket.
Represented by immigration legal groups, several anonymous noncitizens sued over claims that the administration’s actions violate multiple federal laws and their constitutional due process rights.
Murphy, an appointee of former President Biden who serves in Boston, in April agreed to their request for a nationwide injunction blocking the deportations unless the administration gives the migrants sufficient ability to raise claims they will face torture in the third country.
The battle reached the Supreme Court’s emergency docket soon after Murphy agreed that the administration’s effort to deport a group of convicted criminals to South Sudan, a war-torn country in East Africa, violated his order.