Supreme Court lets Trump deport migrants to countries not their own

The court on Monday blocked, at least for now, a lower court order requiring 15 days notice to people the Trump administration is trying to deport to countries other than their own.

The high court’s action reverses the lower court’s order requiring that people being deported have enough time to contact their lawyers and present evidence that would show their lives would be in danger if they were deported to certain countries.

The Supreme Court’s unsigned order puts that decision on hold while the legal process continues in the lower courts.

“Monday’s Supreme Court order is the latest example of its willingness to allow President Trump to accelerate deportations and minimize due process, based on the administration’s assertion that it will be irreparably harmed by interventions from the lower courts while the cases are fully litigated through the appeals process — a process likely to take months,” says longtime Supreme Court reporter Nina Totenberg of NPR.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent, on behalf of herself and Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson: “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: “The Due Process Clause represents ‘the principle that ours is a government of laws, not of men, and that we submit ourselves to rulers only if under rules.’ By rewarding lawlessness, the Court once again undermines that foundational principle.”

“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,” Sotomayor wrote. “That use of discretion is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable.”