Biden-Appointed Judge Rules Against Trump’s Third Country Deportations

A federal judge appointed by former President Joe Biden struck down a key initiative of the Trump administration’s deportation effort Wednesday.

Judge Brian E. Murphy of the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts ruled that the Trump administration can’t deport illegal immigrants to third countries, which are nations other than their native soil. Instead, federal authorities must attempt to remove the illegal immigrant to their home country or another country approved by an immigration judge, Murphy said in the 81-page ruling.

“It is not fine, nor is it legal,” Murphy wrote of the deportation policy.

“This new policy — which purports to stand in for the protections Congress has mandated — fails to satisfy due process for a raft of reasons, not least of which is that nobody really knows anything about these purported ‘assurances.’ Whom do they cover? What do they cover? Why has the Government deemed them credible? How can anyone even know for certain that they exist? These are basic questions that the Constitution permits a person to ask before the Government takes away their last and only lifeline.”

Murphy ruled that illegal immigrants must have “meaningful notice” before they’re deported to a third country so they have the opportunity to share if they fear persecution or torture there.

“These are our laws, and it is with profound gratitude for the unbelievable luck of being born in the United States of America that this Court affirms these and our nation’s bedrock principle: that no ‘person’ in this country may be ‘deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,’” Murphy wrote.

“The simple reality is that nobody knows the merits of any individual class member’s claim because Defendants are withholding the predicate fact: the country of removal,” he wrote.

The Trump administration has shipped off illegal immigrants to countries like Eswatini, Rwanda, Ghana, El Salvador, and South Sudan, as part of the strategy.

The government has 15 days to appeal the order, which exempts border crossers who are to face “expedited removal.”

The Supreme Court previously ruled in June against Murphy’s previous order that prevented the Trump administration from deporting illegal immigrants to third countries. As a result, the Trump administration was able to deport a group of eight illegal immigrants with rap sheets to South Sudan, where none of them held citizenship.

The group of deportees had criminal convictions in the United States and deportation orders, according to the Associated Press.