(Washington) A US federal judge on Wednesday declared illegal the policy adopted by the Trump administration to deport illegal immigrants to third countries.
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This Boston judge, Brian Murphy, nevertheless suspended the entry into force of his decision for 15 days to allow the administration to appeal, given “the importance and unusual history of this case”.
At issue is whether “the government can, without notice, deport a person to the wrong country, or a country where they will likely be persecuted or tortured,” he writes.
In this case, this magistrate had already temporarily blocked expulsions of foreigners of Asian origin to Libya last March.
In April, he also suspended the expulsion of other foreigners to South Sudan, considering that people targeted by expulsion to a country other than their own should be notified, then given a significant period of time to file an appeal on the basis of the United Nations Convention against Torture.
This time ruling on the merits, Judge Murphy concludes that the new directives issued in March by the Department of Homeland Security regarding expulsions to third countries are “illegal”.
According to these guidelines, these expulsions are authorized only on the condition that the country in question provides guarantees that those expelled “will not be persecuted or tortured” and that the State Department considers these guarantees “credible”, without any possible recourse.
On several occasions in these proceedings, “the government has repeatedly violated, or attempted to violate, the decisions of this court,” deplores the judge, echoing the grievances addressed by many of his colleagues to the Trump administration, in particular on immigration matters.
He cites the government’s “lies” about the fears expressed by one of the plaintiffs in this case regarding his deportation to Mexico.
After the person concerned obtained a decision prohibiting his expulsion to Guatemala, where he is from, “because of the sexual violence he had suffered there”, the executive “threw him on a bus to Mexico, where he had just been raped, and from where he was quickly sent back to Guatemala”, the magistrate was indignant.
President Donald Trump has made the fight against illegal immigration a top priority, speaking of an “invasion” of the United States by “criminals from abroad” and communicating extensively on expulsions of immigrants.
But its program of mass expulsions has been thwarted or slowed down by multiple court decisions, including from the predominantly conservative Supreme Court, on the grounds that those targeted should be able to assert their rights.
