The Supreme Court said Thursday that President Trump can deport eight unauthorized immigrants with serious criminal records to South Sudan, undercutting a lower court judge who had insisted he still had the power to block the removals despite a previous ruling.
The high court ruling means that the eight migrants, who for weeks have been living in a cargo container on a U.S. military base in Djibouti while they awaited their fate, can now be fully deported to South Sudan.
Judge Brian Murphy had ruled that immigrants being deported to so-called third countries other than their original homes deserved extra due process hearings. Using that decision, he then ordered a halt to the deportations to South Sudan, saying those eight migrants didn’t get the full due process.
The justices late last month issued a block on his original due process ruling, but Judge Murphy had insisted that it didn’t affect the eight migrants.
The high court Thursday said it did.
“Our June 23 order stayed the April 18 preliminary injunction in full. The May 21 remedial order cannot now be used to enforce an injunction that our stay rendered unenforceable,” the justices said in an unsigned order.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, arguing that the court was bending itself to deliver on Mr. Trump’s requests.
“Today’s order clarifies only one thing: Other litigants must follow the rules, but the administration has the Supreme Court on speed dial,” she said.
She said the high court shouldn’t have considered the Trump request at all, saying it should have gone through the lower courts.
She said the result of the ruling is that the eight immigrants’ rights will be violated.
“What the government 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 authorities without regard for the likelihood that they will face torture or death,” she said.
She also excused Judge Murphy’s ruling, saying he had to act quickly and, given the lack of support for the high court’s Thursday ruling, he could “hardly be faulted for reaching a contrary conclusion.”
“The court’s continued refusal to justify its extraordinary decisions in this case, even as it faults lower courts for failing properly to divine their import, is indefensible,” she said in an opinion joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Justice Elena Kagan voted against last month’s ruling blocking the initial due-process decision, but she did not join the dissenters on Thursday. She said that, because the court’s previous ruling is now precedent, the lower court should follow it.
The migrants in Djibouti are Jose Manuel Rodriguez-Quinones, a Cuban convicted of attempted murder; Enrique Arias-Hierro, a Cuban convicted of homicide and kidnapping; Thongxay Nilakout, a Laotian convicted of murder; Jesus Munoz-Gutierrez, a Mexican convicted of murder; Dian Peter Domach, a South Sudan citizen convicted of robbery; Kyaw Mya, a Myanmarese citizen convicted of a sex crime against a child less than 12 years of age; Nyo Myint, another Myanmarese citizen convicted of sexual assault against a mentally infirm person; and Tuan Thanh Phan, a Vietnamese citizen convicted of murder.
U.S. officials have said the situation in Djibouti is tenuous, with nearby burn pits causing illnesses among the migrants and deportation officers, and rocket attacks from rebels in Yemen placing their lives in danger.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.