(Geneva) Expelling migrants to third countries as the United States has just done southern Sudan takes them on the risk of being tortured, several UN experts alerted on Tuesday.
These 11 experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, but who do not speak on behalf of the organization, alert to a recent decision of the US Supreme Court which has spoken in favor of expulsion of migrants to third countries.
“International law is clear: no one should be sent wherever it is when there are serious reasons for believing that this person risks being submitted (…) to torture, to a forced disappearance or to an arbitrary deprivation of life,” the experts said in a statement.
“The diplomatic guarantees provided by other countries concerning the safety of transferred migrants cannot be taken for cash. The United States is required to carry out a complete assessment, in accordance with its non-refoulement obligations, ”they noted.
Last week, the highest court in the United States validated the expulsion of eight irregular migrants to South Sudan, one of the poorest countries in the world and prey to chronic instability.
Two Burmese, two Cubans, a Vietnamese, a Laotian, a Mexican and a South Sudanese, had been expelled in May from the United States. Until then, they were retained at an American military base in Djibouti, after a judge had suspended this type of evictions on the grounds that it was not given to migrants a “significant opportunity” to challenge them.
“To protect people from torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading penalties or treatment, forced disappearances and risks for life, they must have the possibility of expressing their objections to expulsion in the context of a legally supervised procedure,” said UN experts.
They urge Washington “to refrain from any new expulsion to third countries, to guarantee effective access to legal assistance for those who may be expelled, and to ensure that all these procedures are subject to independent judicial control”.
