WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to deport migrants to countries other than their own, pausing a federal judge’s ruling that said they must first be given a chance to show that they would face the risk of torture and clearing the way for the administration to send men held at a U.S. military base in Djibouti on to South Sudan.
The court’s order gave no reasons and said the judge’s ruling would remain paused while the government pursues an appeal and, after that, until the Supreme Court acts. The court’s three liberal members issued a lengthy dissent.
The order was the latest in a series of rulings related to immigration decided by the justices in summary fashion on what critics call the court’s shadow docket. Two allowed the administration to lift protections for hundreds of thousands of people who had been granted temporary protected status or humanitarian parole.
But others insisted on due process — notice and an opportunity to be heard — for migrants before they are deported. Monday’s ruling moved in a different direction, refusing to allow migrants to make the case that they would face torture if sent to places with which they have no connection.
The absence of any reasoning made it impossible to understand the majority’s thinking.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, called the ruling “a victory for the safety and security of the American people.”
Leila Kang, a lawyer with Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, which represents migrants in the case, said the court’s order would have devastating consequences.
“The Supreme Court’s ruling leaves thousands of people vulnerable to deportation to third countries where they face torture or death, even if the deportations are clearly unlawful,” she said.
This case captured public attention in May when the government loaded eight men onto a plane said to be headed to South Sudan, a violence-plagued African country.
Their flight landed instead in the East African nation of Djibouti. The judge, Brian E. Murphy of the U.S. District Court in Boston, ruled that the men must be given access to lawyers and a chance to challenge the government’s plan to send them to South Sudan.