Three liberal justices of the Supreme Court have raged against a conservative majority decision that temporarily allows the Trump administration to resume the swift deportation of immigrants to countries other than their homeland.
On Monday, the order was passed 6-3, with the court’s three liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson all dissenting, labeling it a “gross abuse” of the court’s powers.
The 19-page dissent was signed by the three justices who said the court’s action exposes “thousands to the risk of torture or death.”
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The new ruling is a victory for the Trump administration and means immigrants can be deported to countries willing to accept them, including Sudan, without requiring extensive notice beforehand.
It also overrules a court order that required the immigrants receive a chance to challenge their deportation on the risk of possible death or torture in the country they are being sent to.
The current practice was put in place after President Trump signed an executive order in January.
In April, US District Judge Brian E Murphy in Massachusetts placed an injunction on the deportations.
In May, eight migrants from countries including Cuba, Vietnam and Myanmar, were sent to South Sudan despite a standing court order which allowed migrants the chance to point out the dangers in being sent to a country that was not their homeland. After Murphy’s intervention, they were diverted to a US naval base in Djibouti after intervention from a judge.
In the Monday ruling, SCOTUS’ conservative majority provided no rationale for their decision.
In the dissent, however, Sotomayor wrote, “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.”
Sotomayor said the court’s action was “as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable.”
She wrote, “Apparently, the court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in far-flung 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.”
The three justices also said their colleagues were “rewarding lawlessness.”
The White House, along with Tricia McLaughlin, from the Department of Homeland Security, rejoiced over the court decision. “Fire up the deportation planes,” McLaughlin wrote on her X account on Monday.
“The SCOTUS ruling is a victory for the safety and security of the American people,” McLaughlin wrote. “The Biden Administration allowed millions of illegal aliens to flood our country, and, now, the Trump Administration can exercise its undisputed authority to remove these criminal illegal aliens and clean up this national security nightmare.”
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, meanwhile, posted a video of Trump doing his well-known dance in celebration of the outcome.
McLaughlin continued, “If these activists judges had their way, aliens who are so uniquely barbaric that their own countries won’t take them back, including convicted murderers, child rapists and drug traffickers, would walk free on American streets. DHS can now execute its lawful authority and remove illegal aliens to a country willing to accept them.”
Lawyers for some of the migrants involved in the flight to South Sudan said despite the ruling, they would press forward. “The ramifications of Supreme Court’s order will be horrifying,” Trina Realmuto, the executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, told Al Jazeera.
