Supreme Court allows Trump to resume deporting migrants to third countries

The Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to resume deporting migrants to countries other than their own without offering them a chance to show the harm they might face, strengthening a tool that Donald Trump has used for rapid deportations as part of his crackdown on immigration.

The justices granted the Justice Department’s request to block the ruling by Boston-based U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy that the Department of Homeland Security’s policy of removing migrants to so-called third countries is unlawful.

They also agreed to hear arguments in the dispute in December, with a formal decision on the policy to follow. Its three liberal justices dissented from the decision.

Federal lawyers said the lower court’s ruling forced the cancellation of a deportation flight carrying about 70 people to three countries.

The justices previously allowed the deportation flights, a core policy of the Trump administration, to continue temporarily when the case was brought before them last year. In another win for the administration, the Supreme Court then lifted restrictions the judge had imposed to protect a group of men from being sent to South Sudan.

More than 25,000 people have been deported to 29 countries under the policy implemented last year, according to a count by human rights groups, with the overwhelming majority going to Mexico.

The administration has also carried out third-country deportations to politically unstable South Sudan, which the U.S. State Department urges Americans to avoid because of the risks of crime, kidnapping and armed conflict, as well as to Uganda, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, the Central African Republic and other countries.