update - Supreme Court majority makes temporary order allowing deportation to countries involved in torture or civil war pending further litigation
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Court blocks Louisiana law requiring schools to post Ten Commandments in classrooms
A panel of three federal appellate judges has ruled that a Louisiana law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in each of the state’s public school classrooms is unconstitutional.
apnews.com
The ruling Friday marked a major win for civil liberties groups who say the mandate violates the separation of church and state, and that the poster-sized displays would isolate students — especially those who are not Christian.
The mandate has been touted by Republicans, including President Donald Trump, and marks one of the latest pushes by conservatives to incorporate religion into classrooms. Backers of the law argue the Ten Commandments belong in classrooms because they are historical and part of the foundation of U.S. law.
“This is a resounding victory for the separation of church and state and public education,” said Heather L. Weaver, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. “With today’s ruling, the Fifth Circuit has held Louisiana accountable to a core constitutional promise: Public schools are not Sunday schools, and they must welcome all students, regardless of faith.”
The plaintiffs’ attorneys and Louisiana disagreed on whether the appeals court’s decision applied to every public school district in the state or only the districts party to the lawsuit.
“All school districts in the state are bound to comply with the U.S. Constitution,” said Liz Hayes, a spokesperson for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which served as co-counsel for the plaintiffs.
The appeals court’s rulings “interpret the law for all of Louisiana,” Hayes added. “Thus, all school districts must abide by this decision and should not post the Ten Commandments in their classrooms.”
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said she disagreed and believed the ruling only applied to school districts in the five parishes that were party to the lawsuit. Murrill added that she would appeal the ruling, including taking it to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.
The panel of judges reviewing the case was unusually liberal for the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In a court with more than twice as many Republican-appointed judges, two of the three judges involved in the ruling were appointed by Democratic presidents.
The court’s ruling stems from a lawsuit filed last year by parents of Louisiana school children from various religious backgrounds, who said the law violates First Amendment language guaranteeing religious liberty and forbidding government establishment of religion.
The ruling also backs an order issued last fall by U.S. District Judge John deGravelles, who declared the mandate unconstitutional and ordered state education officials not to enforce it and to notify all local school boards in the state of his decision.
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed the mandate into law last June.
Landry said in a statement Friday that he supports the attorney general’s plans to appeal.
“The Ten Commandments are the foundation of our laws — serving both an educational and historical purpose in our classrooms,” Landry said.
Law experts have long said they expect the Louisiana case to make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, testing the court on the issue of religion and government.
Similar laws have been challenged in court.
A group of Arkansas families filed a federal lawsuit earlier this month challenging a near-identical law passed in their state. And comparable legislation in Texas currently awaits Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature.
In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Kentucky law violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says Congress can “make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The court found that the law had no secular purpose but served a plainly religious purpose.
And in 2005, the Supreme Court held that such displays in a pair of Kentucky courthouses violated the Constitution. At the same time, the court upheld a Ten Commandments marker on the grounds of the Texas state Capitol in Austin.
Interesting, you have to split hairs now.
On the one hand you are against attacks on the courts and the law but on the other hand you support what the ICC and ICJ have stated are apartheid, extermination and genocide.
The Supreme Court on Friday declined to fast-track a legal challenge to President Donald Trump's tariffs, rejecting a motion to expedite the case and delaying consideration despite pressure from affected companies.
Why It Matters
Trump announced a slate of tariffs in April as part of "Liberation Day," which the president promised would reshape global trade to be more favorable to the United States. The tariffs affected nearly every U.S. trading partner and triggered global market turmoil.
Trump ultimately backtracked on his initial announcement after saying that many of the countries impacted by the tariffs had reached out to negotiate. The U.S. tariff policy has continued to evolve over the following two months.
The U.S. Court of International Trade then blocked Trump's tariffs, which were in turn stayed by a federal appeals court, which allowed the tariffs to remain in place while legal proceedings played out.
What To Know
Chicago-based toy companies, including Learning Resources Inc., challenged Trump's tariffs and scored an early win in the lower courts; however, the administration has appealed the decision, which is pending in the appeals courts.
In the initial challenge, the company argued that Trump had illegally imposed tariffs under an emergency powers law that bypassed Congress, which alone holds the authority to enact tariffs. Despite winning the initial challenge, the tariffs remain in effect while the appeals are being processed.
The companies, in a bid to find a quick resolution and relief from the tariffs, filed an appeal with the Supreme Court to take up the case ahead of any decision from an appeals court—a long shot for any legal challenge.
The Supreme Court on Friday returned with a decision not to fast-track the case, as per the appeal, and instead allowed the lower court to make its decisions first.
Learning Resources CEO Rick Woldenberg said tariffs and uncertainty are taking a major toll on the company, telling the Associated Press that prices are rising and manufacturers "absolutely do not have a choice," adding that a "sense of dread" pervades.
The administration continues to defend its use of tariffs by arguing that emergency powers give the president the authority to regulate imports during national emergencies, and officials have argued that the country's trade deficit qualifies as a national emergency.
Supreme Court hands Donald Trump a legal win over tariffs
Why It Matters
Trump announced a slate of tariffs in April as part of "Liberation Day," which the president promised would reshape global trade to be more favorable to the United States. The tariffs affected nearly every U.S. trading partner and triggered global market turmoil.
Trump ultimately backtracked on his initial announcement after saying that many of the countries impacted by the tariffs had reached out to negotiate. The U.S. tariff policy has continued to evolve over the following two months.
The U.S. Court of International Trade then blocked Trump's tariffs, which were in turn stayed by a federal appeals court, which allowed the tariffs to remain in place while legal proceedings played out.
What To Know
Chicago-based toy companies, including Learning Resources Inc., challenged Trump's tariffs and scored an early win in the lower courts; however, the administration has appealed the decision, which is pending in the appeals courts.
In the initial challenge, the company argued that Trump had illegally imposed tariffs under an emergency powers law that bypassed Congress, which alone holds the authority to enact tariffs. Despite winning the initial challenge, the tariffs remain in effect while the appeals are being processed.
The companies, in a bid to find a quick resolution and relief from the tariffs, filed an appeal with the Supreme Court to take up the case ahead of any decision from an appeals court—a long shot for any legal challenge.
The Supreme Court on Friday returned with a decision not to fast-track the case, as per the appeal, and instead allowed the lower court to make its decisions first.
Learning Resources CEO Rick Woldenberg said tariffs and uncertainty are taking a major toll on the company, telling the Associated Press that prices are rising and manufacturers "absolutely do not have a choice," adding that a "sense of dread" pervades.
The administration continues to defend its use of tariffs by arguing that emergency powers give the president the authority to regulate imports during national emergencies, and officials have argued that the country's trade deficit qualifies as a national emergency.
Supreme Court hands Donald Trump a legal win over tariffs
A Palestinian activist who participated in protests against Israel has been freed from federal immigration detention after 104 days.
Mahmoud Khalil, who became a symbol of President Donald Trump ’s clampdown on campus protests, left a federal facility in Louisiana on Friday. The former Columbia University graduate student is expected to head to New York to reunite with his U.S. citizen wife and infant son, born while Khalil was detained.
Palestinian activist and former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, center, speaks after his release from federal immigration detention in Jena, La., Friday, June 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)© The Associated Press
Here’s a look at what has happened so far in Khalil’s legal battle:
The arrest
Federal immigration agents detained Khalil on March 8, the first arrest under Trump’s crackdown on students who joined campus protests against Israel’s devastating war in Gaza.
The La Salle Detention Facility is seen in Jena, La., Friday, June 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)© The Associated Press
Khalil, a legal U.S. resident, was then taken to an immigration detention center in Jena, a remote part of Louisiana thousands of miles from his attorneys and his wife.
The 30-year-old international affairs student had served as a negotiator and spokesperson for student activists at Columbia University who took over a campus lawn to protest the war.
The university brought police in to dismantle the encampment after a small group of protesters seized an administration building. Khalil was not accused of participating in the building occupation and wasn’t among those arrested in connection with the demonstrations.
But images of his maskless face at protests, along with his willingness to share his name with reporters, made him an object of scorn among those who saw the protesters and their demands as antisemitic.
The legal fight
Khalil wasn’t accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia.
However, the government has said noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the U.S. for expressing views the administration considers to be antisemitic and “pro-Hamas,” referring to the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Khalil’s lawyers challenged the legality of his detention, arguing that the Trump administration was trying to deport him for an activity protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio justified Khalil’s deportation by citing a rarely used statute that gives him power to deport those who pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
The initial ruling
Immigration Judge Jamee E. Comans ruled in April that the government’s contention was enough to satisfy requirements for Khalil's deportation.
Comans said the government had “established by clear and convincing evidence that he is removable.”
Federal judges in New York and New Jersey had previously ordered the U.S. government not to deport Khalil while his case played out in court.
Khalil remained detained for several weeks, with his lawyers arguing that he was being prevented from exercising his free speech and due process rights despite no obvious reason for his continued detention.
Release granted
Khalil was released after U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be “highly, highly unusual” for the government to continue detaining a legal U.S. resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn’t been accused of any violence.
“Petitioner is not a flight risk, and the evidence presented is that he is not a danger to the community,” he said. “Period, full stop.”
During an hourlong hearing conducted by phone, the New Jersey-based judge said the government had “clearly not met” the standards for detention.
Speaking Friday outside the detention facility, Khalil said, “Justice prevailed, but it’s very long overdue. This shouldn’t have taken three months.”
Legal fight continues
The government filed notice Friday evening that it’s appealing Khalil’s release.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a post on the social platform X that the same day Farbiarz ordered Khalil’s release, an immigration judge in Louisiana denied Khalil bond and “ordered him removed.” That decision was made by Comans, who is in a court in the same detention facility from which Khalil was released.
“An immigration judge, not a district judge, has the authority to decide if Mr. Khalil should be released or detained,” the post said.
Farbiarz ruled that the government can’t deport Khalil based on its claims that his presence could undermine foreign policy. But he gave the administration leeway to pursue a potential deportation based on allegations that Khalil lied on his green card application, an accusation Khalil disputes.
Khalil had to surrender his passport and can’t travel internationally, but he will get his green card back and be given official documents permitting limited travel within the U.S., including New York and Michigan to visit family, New Jersey and Louisiana for court appearances and Washington to lobby Congress.
Khalil said Friday that no one should be detained for protesting Israel’s war in Gaza. He said his time in the Jena, Louisiana, detention facility had shown him “a different reality about this country that supposedly champions human rights and liberty and justice.” In a statement after the judge’s ruling, Khalil’s wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, said she could finally “breathe a sigh of relief” after her husband’s three months in detention.
The judge’s decision came after several other scholars targeted for their activism have been released from custody, including another former Palestinian student at Columbia, Mohsen Mahdawi; a Tufts University student, Rumeysa Ozturk; and a Georgetown University scholar, Badar Khan Suri.
Bruce Shipkowski, The Associated Press
What to know about activist Mahmoud Khalil and his release from immigration detention
Mahmoud Khalil, who became a symbol of President Donald Trump ’s clampdown on campus protests, left a federal facility in Louisiana on Friday. The former Columbia University graduate student is expected to head to New York to reunite with his U.S. citizen wife and infant son, born while Khalil was detained.
Palestinian activist and former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, center, speaks after his release from federal immigration detention in Jena, La., Friday, June 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)© The Associated Press
Here’s a look at what has happened so far in Khalil’s legal battle:
The arrest
Federal immigration agents detained Khalil on March 8, the first arrest under Trump’s crackdown on students who joined campus protests against Israel’s devastating war in Gaza.
The La Salle Detention Facility is seen in Jena, La., Friday, June 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)© The Associated Press
Khalil, a legal U.S. resident, was then taken to an immigration detention center in Jena, a remote part of Louisiana thousands of miles from his attorneys and his wife.
The 30-year-old international affairs student had served as a negotiator and spokesperson for student activists at Columbia University who took over a campus lawn to protest the war.
The university brought police in to dismantle the encampment after a small group of protesters seized an administration building. Khalil was not accused of participating in the building occupation and wasn’t among those arrested in connection with the demonstrations.
But images of his maskless face at protests, along with his willingness to share his name with reporters, made him an object of scorn among those who saw the protesters and their demands as antisemitic.
The legal fight
Khalil wasn’t accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia.
However, the government has said noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the U.S. for expressing views the administration considers to be antisemitic and “pro-Hamas,” referring to the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Khalil’s lawyers challenged the legality of his detention, arguing that the Trump administration was trying to deport him for an activity protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio justified Khalil’s deportation by citing a rarely used statute that gives him power to deport those who pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
The initial ruling
Immigration Judge Jamee E. Comans ruled in April that the government’s contention was enough to satisfy requirements for Khalil's deportation.
Comans said the government had “established by clear and convincing evidence that he is removable.”
Federal judges in New York and New Jersey had previously ordered the U.S. government not to deport Khalil while his case played out in court.
Khalil remained detained for several weeks, with his lawyers arguing that he was being prevented from exercising his free speech and due process rights despite no obvious reason for his continued detention.
Release granted
Khalil was released after U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be “highly, highly unusual” for the government to continue detaining a legal U.S. resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn’t been accused of any violence.
“Petitioner is not a flight risk, and the evidence presented is that he is not a danger to the community,” he said. “Period, full stop.”
During an hourlong hearing conducted by phone, the New Jersey-based judge said the government had “clearly not met” the standards for detention.
Speaking Friday outside the detention facility, Khalil said, “Justice prevailed, but it’s very long overdue. This shouldn’t have taken three months.”
Legal fight continues
The government filed notice Friday evening that it’s appealing Khalil’s release.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a post on the social platform X that the same day Farbiarz ordered Khalil’s release, an immigration judge in Louisiana denied Khalil bond and “ordered him removed.” That decision was made by Comans, who is in a court in the same detention facility from which Khalil was released.
“An immigration judge, not a district judge, has the authority to decide if Mr. Khalil should be released or detained,” the post said.
Farbiarz ruled that the government can’t deport Khalil based on its claims that his presence could undermine foreign policy. But he gave the administration leeway to pursue a potential deportation based on allegations that Khalil lied on his green card application, an accusation Khalil disputes.
Khalil had to surrender his passport and can’t travel internationally, but he will get his green card back and be given official documents permitting limited travel within the U.S., including New York and Michigan to visit family, New Jersey and Louisiana for court appearances and Washington to lobby Congress.
Khalil said Friday that no one should be detained for protesting Israel’s war in Gaza. He said his time in the Jena, Louisiana, detention facility had shown him “a different reality about this country that supposedly champions human rights and liberty and justice.” In a statement after the judge’s ruling, Khalil’s wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, said she could finally “breathe a sigh of relief” after her husband’s three months in detention.
The judge’s decision came after several other scholars targeted for their activism have been released from custody, including another former Palestinian student at Columbia, Mohsen Mahdawi; a Tufts University student, Rumeysa Ozturk; and a Georgetown University scholar, Badar Khan Suri.
Bruce Shipkowski, The Associated Press
What to know about activist Mahmoud Khalil and his release from immigration detention
The Trump administration has terminated 639 employees at Voice of America and its parent organization in the latest round of sweeping cuts that have reduced the international broadcasting service to a fraction of its former size.
The mass terminations announced Friday rounds out the Trump-led elimination of 1,400 positions since March and represents the near-complete dismantling of an organization founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda, whose first broadcast declared: “We bring you voices from America.”
Just 250 employees now remain across the entire parent group the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), who operated what was America’s primary tool for projecting democratic values globally.
“For decades, American taxpayers have been forced to bankroll an agency that’s been riddled with dysfunction, bias and waste. That ends now,” said Kari Lake, Trump’s senior advisor to USAGM, in Friday’s termination announcement.
VOA once reached 360 million people weekly across dozens of languages, former USAGM CEO and director John Lansing told Congress in 2019. In March, the White House put out a statement calling the outlet “propaganda”, “leftist” and dubbed it “The Voice of Radical America”. One of the examples cited to justify that explanation was VOA’s refusal to use the term “terrorist” to describe members of Hamas unless in statements, which falls in line with common and basic journalistic practice.
The cuts represent a major retreat from America’s Cold War strategy of using broadcasting to reach audiences behind the iron curtain. VOA had evolved from its wartime origins to become a lifeline for populations living under authoritarian rule, providing independent news and an American perspective in regions where press freedom is under assault.
The layoffs also came just days after VOA recalled Farsi-speaking journalists from administrative leave to cover the war between Israel and Iran, after Israel shot missiles at Tehran less than a week ago in the dead of night.
“It spells the death of 83 years of independent journalism that upholds US ideals of democracy and freedom around the world,” said three VOA journalists, Patsy Widakuswara, Jessica Jerreat and Kate Neeper, who are leading legal challenges against the demolition, in a statement.
The agency’s folding began in March when Trump signed an executive order targeting federal agencies he branded as bloated bureaucracy, and VOA staff were placed on paid leave and broadcasts were suspended.
Lake, Trump’s handpicked choice to run VOA, had previously floated plans to replace the service’s professional journalism with content from One America News Network (OANN), a rightwing pro-Trump network that would provide programming without charge.
The sole survivor of the cull is the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which transmits into Cuba from Florida. All 33 employees there remain, according to the announcement.
USAGM offered voluntary departure packages through what it termed a “Fork in the Road” program, providing full pay through September plus benefits. Some 163 employees accepted the buyouts rather than face involuntary termination, the agency said in a press release.
Federal courts have allowed the administration to proceed with the terminations while legal challenges continue for now.
The VOA cuts form part of Trump’s broader assault on the federal workforce, with tens of thousands terminated across agencies including the IRS, Social Security Administration, USAID, and departments of education, health and agriculture.
Trump administration almost totally dismantles Voice of America with latest terminations
Terminations of 639 employees were announced at organization founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda
www.theguardian.com
The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration, at least for now, to move forward with deporting immigrants to countries not specifically identified in their removal orders. In a brief unsigned order, the justices paused a ruling by a federal judge in Massachusetts that temporarily prohibited the government from sending immigrants to “third-party countries” without first taking a series of steps to ensure that the immigrants would not face torture there.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, in a lengthy opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “Apparently,” Sotomayor wrote, “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 dispute stems from guidance issued by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year, in response to an executive order signed by President Donald Trump that instructed DHS to take “all appropriate actions” to remove noncitizens who are still in the United States even though an immigration judge issued an order for their deportation.
In the first set of guidance, issued in February, DHS instructed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to determine whether immigrants who had been the subject of such orders but had not yet been deported because of the prospect that they would be tortured if they were returned to their home countries could instead be sent to a different country – a process known as a third-country removal.
Then, in March, DHS issued additional guidance that outlined a set of procedures for use in cases involving efforts to deport immigrants to countries that are not specifically identified in their deportation orders when those countries have not assured the federal government that the immigrants will not face torture. First, DHS said, the immigrants must receive notice of the planned removal; they must then have an opportunity to “affirmatively express” fear that they will face torture; and – if needed – DHS must conduct a screening to determine the likelihood that they will be tortured.
The plaintiffs in this case – four undocumented immigrants with deportation orders – went to federal court in Massachusetts, seeking to block their removal to a country not identified in those orders.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy temporarily barred the government from deporting the plaintiffs and others in similar situations to third countries without first providing written notice to the immigrants and their lawyers, giving them at least 10 days and a “meaningful opportunity” to express their fear of removal, considering whether the immigrants have a “reasonable fear” of being tortured, and giving them at least 15 days to seek to reopen their immigration proceedings if the government determines that they do not meet all of these criteria.
After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit declined to put Murphy’s order on hold, the Trump administration came to the Supreme Court on May 27, asking the justices to intervene. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the court that Murphy’s “judicially created procedures are currently wreaking havoc on the third-country removal process,” and disrupting “sensitive diplomatic, foreign-policy, and national-security efforts.”
Among the highest-profile third-country removal efforts is the federal government’s ongoing attempt to remove a group of immigrants to South Sudan, which is the subject of a State Department travel advisory that warns U.S. citizens against travel because of “ongoing” armed conflict that “includes fighting between various political and ethnic groups.” In a hearing on May 22, Murphy found that the federal government had violated his order when it put the group on a plane to South Sudan without following the proper procedures. The plane was rerouted to Djibouti, where the immigrants and ICE officers currently remain.
In their response to the Trump administration’s request, the immigrants urged the justices to leave Murphy’s order in place. They emphasized that his order doesn’t bar the government from carrying out third-country removals. Instead, they wrote, “it simply requires” the Trump administration “to comply with the law when carrying” out such removals.
The Supreme Court on Monday granted the Trump administration’s request and put Murphy’s order on hold while the government’s appeal moves forward. As is often the case with orders on the court’s emergency appeals docket, the court did not provide any reasoning for its ruling, nor did the justices who signed on to the ruling publicly identify themselves; we know only that at least five justices voted to pause Murphy’s order.
In a 19-page opinion that Sotomayor ended by indicating that she dissented “[r]espectfully” – an adverb traditionally used in dissents – but also “regretfully,” Sotomayor complained that her colleagues in the majority had stepped in “to grant the Government emergency relief from an order it has repeatedly defied” when it should have allowed the lower-court judges “to manage this high-stakes litigation with the care and attention it plainly requires.”
Sotomayor also suggested that the Trump administration is not entitled to the relief that it received on Monday because it failed to comply with the lower court’s orders – first by sending four noncitizens to Guantanamo Bay and then on to El Salvador, and then by sending the immigrants to South Sudan. “The Government,” Sotomayor wrote, “thus openly flouted two court orders, including the one from which it now seeks relief.”
Even if the orders were wrong, she stressed, the government was still required to follow them while they were in effect. “That principle is a bedrock of the rule of law,” she added, and the “Government’s misconduct threatens it to its core.” Moreover, she continued, “each time this Court rewards noncompliance with discretionary relief, it further erodes respect for courts and for the rule of law.”
www.scotusblog.com
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, in a lengthy opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “Apparently,” Sotomayor wrote, “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 dispute stems from guidance issued by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year, in response to an executive order signed by President Donald Trump that instructed DHS to take “all appropriate actions” to remove noncitizens who are still in the United States even though an immigration judge issued an order for their deportation.
In the first set of guidance, issued in February, DHS instructed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to determine whether immigrants who had been the subject of such orders but had not yet been deported because of the prospect that they would be tortured if they were returned to their home countries could instead be sent to a different country – a process known as a third-country removal.
Then, in March, DHS issued additional guidance that outlined a set of procedures for use in cases involving efforts to deport immigrants to countries that are not specifically identified in their deportation orders when those countries have not assured the federal government that the immigrants will not face torture. First, DHS said, the immigrants must receive notice of the planned removal; they must then have an opportunity to “affirmatively express” fear that they will face torture; and – if needed – DHS must conduct a screening to determine the likelihood that they will be tortured.
The plaintiffs in this case – four undocumented immigrants with deportation orders – went to federal court in Massachusetts, seeking to block their removal to a country not identified in those orders.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy temporarily barred the government from deporting the plaintiffs and others in similar situations to third countries without first providing written notice to the immigrants and their lawyers, giving them at least 10 days and a “meaningful opportunity” to express their fear of removal, considering whether the immigrants have a “reasonable fear” of being tortured, and giving them at least 15 days to seek to reopen their immigration proceedings if the government determines that they do not meet all of these criteria.
After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit declined to put Murphy’s order on hold, the Trump administration came to the Supreme Court on May 27, asking the justices to intervene. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the court that Murphy’s “judicially created procedures are currently wreaking havoc on the third-country removal process,” and disrupting “sensitive diplomatic, foreign-policy, and national-security efforts.”
Among the highest-profile third-country removal efforts is the federal government’s ongoing attempt to remove a group of immigrants to South Sudan, which is the subject of a State Department travel advisory that warns U.S. citizens against travel because of “ongoing” armed conflict that “includes fighting between various political and ethnic groups.” In a hearing on May 22, Murphy found that the federal government had violated his order when it put the group on a plane to South Sudan without following the proper procedures. The plane was rerouted to Djibouti, where the immigrants and ICE officers currently remain.
In their response to the Trump administration’s request, the immigrants urged the justices to leave Murphy’s order in place. They emphasized that his order doesn’t bar the government from carrying out third-country removals. Instead, they wrote, “it simply requires” the Trump administration “to comply with the law when carrying” out such removals.
The Supreme Court on Monday granted the Trump administration’s request and put Murphy’s order on hold while the government’s appeal moves forward. As is often the case with orders on the court’s emergency appeals docket, the court did not provide any reasoning for its ruling, nor did the justices who signed on to the ruling publicly identify themselves; we know only that at least five justices voted to pause Murphy’s order.
In a 19-page opinion that Sotomayor ended by indicating that she dissented “[r]espectfully” – an adverb traditionally used in dissents – but also “regretfully,” Sotomayor complained that her colleagues in the majority had stepped in “to grant the Government emergency relief from an order it has repeatedly defied” when it should have allowed the lower-court judges “to manage this high-stakes litigation with the care and attention it plainly requires.”
Sotomayor also suggested that the Trump administration is not entitled to the relief that it received on Monday because it failed to comply with the lower court’s orders – first by sending four noncitizens to Guantanamo Bay and then on to El Salvador, and then by sending the immigrants to South Sudan. “The Government,” Sotomayor wrote, “thus openly flouted two court orders, including the one from which it now seeks relief.”
Even if the orders were wrong, she stressed, the government was still required to follow them while they were in effect. “That principle is a bedrock of the rule of law,” she added, and the “Government’s misconduct threatens it to its core.” Moreover, she continued, “each time this Court rewards noncompliance with discretionary relief, it further erodes respect for courts and for the rule of law.”
Supreme Court pauses district court order preventing immigrants from being deported to third-party countries
The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration, at least for now, to move forward with deporting immigrants to countries not specifically identified in their removal orders. In a […]
www.scotusblog.com
WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to restart swift removals of migrants to countries other than their homelands, lifting for now a court order requiring they get a chance to challenge the deportations.
The high court majority did not detail its reasoning in the brief order, as is typical on its emergency docket. All three liberal justices joined a scathing dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
The court action came after immigration officials put eight people on a plane to South Sudan, though they later diverted to an American naval base in Djibouti after a judge stepped in.
The migrants from countries including Myanmar, Vietnam and Cuba had been convicted of serious crimes in the U.S. Immigration officials have said that they were unable to return them quickly to their home countries.
The case comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by Republican President Donald Trump’s administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally.
In her 19-page dissent, Sotomayor wrote that the court’s action exposes “thousands to the risk of torture or death" and gives the Trump administration a win despite earlier violating the lower court's order.
“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,” she wrote in the dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Attorneys for the migrants sent to South Sudan said they would continue to press their case in court. “The ramifications of Supreme Court’s order will be horrifying,” said Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance.
Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin, meanwhile, said in a social media post that the decision is a “MAJOR win for the safety and security of the American people.”
The agency did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.
The Justice Department said in court documents the government is weighing the decision to decide its next steps.
The Supreme Court action halts an order from U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Boston, who decided in April that people must get a chance to argue deportation to a third country would put them in danger — even if they've otherwise exhausted their legal appeals.
He found that the May deportations to South Sudan violated his order and told immigration authorities to allow people to raise those concerns through their lawyers. Immigration officials housed the migrants in a converted shipping container in Djibouti, where they and the officers guarding them faced rough conditions.
The administration has reached agreements with other countries, including Panama and Costa Rica, to house immigrants because some countries do not accept U.S. deportations. South Sudan, meanwhile, has endured repeated waves of violence since gaining independence in 2011. The migrants sent there in May got less than 16 hours' notice, Sotomayor wrote.
Murphy, who was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, didn't prohibit deportations to third countries. But he found migrants must have a real chance to argue they could be in serious danger of torture if sent to another country.
Another order in the same case resulted in the Trump administration returning a gay Guatemalan man who had been wrongly deported to Mexico, where he says he had been raped and extorted — the first person known to have been returned to U.S. custody after deportation since the start of Trump’s second term.
The justices confronted a similar issue in Trump’s effort to send Venezuelans accused of being gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador with little chance to challenge the deportations in court.
But in that case, the justices put the brakes on deportations under an 18th century wartime law, saying migrants must get a “reasonable time” to file a court challenge before being removed.
The conservative-majority court has sided with Trump in other immigration cases, however, clearing the way for his administration to end temporary legal protections affecting a total of nearly a million immigrants.
Those victories are among several recent wins the Trump administration has recently racked up before the conservative-majority court as it pushes to move ahead with the president's sweeping agenda on issues ranging from a ban on transgender troops in the military to the dramatic downsizing of the federal government.
Lindsay Whitehurst, The Associated Press
Supreme Court allows Trump to restart swift deportation of migrants away from their home countries
The high court majority did not detail its reasoning in the brief order, as is typical on its emergency docket. All three liberal justices joined a scathing dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
The court action came after immigration officials put eight people on a plane to South Sudan, though they later diverted to an American naval base in Djibouti after a judge stepped in.
The migrants from countries including Myanmar, Vietnam and Cuba had been convicted of serious crimes in the U.S. Immigration officials have said that they were unable to return them quickly to their home countries.
The case comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by Republican President Donald Trump’s administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally.
In her 19-page dissent, Sotomayor wrote that the court’s action exposes “thousands to the risk of torture or death" and gives the Trump administration a win despite earlier violating the lower court's order.
“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,” she wrote in the dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Attorneys for the migrants sent to South Sudan said they would continue to press their case in court. “The ramifications of Supreme Court’s order will be horrifying,” said Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance.
Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin, meanwhile, said in a social media post that the decision is a “MAJOR win for the safety and security of the American people.”
The agency did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.
The Justice Department said in court documents the government is weighing the decision to decide its next steps.
The Supreme Court action halts an order from U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Boston, who decided in April that people must get a chance to argue deportation to a third country would put them in danger — even if they've otherwise exhausted their legal appeals.
He found that the May deportations to South Sudan violated his order and told immigration authorities to allow people to raise those concerns through their lawyers. Immigration officials housed the migrants in a converted shipping container in Djibouti, where they and the officers guarding them faced rough conditions.
The administration has reached agreements with other countries, including Panama and Costa Rica, to house immigrants because some countries do not accept U.S. deportations. South Sudan, meanwhile, has endured repeated waves of violence since gaining independence in 2011. The migrants sent there in May got less than 16 hours' notice, Sotomayor wrote.
Murphy, who was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, didn't prohibit deportations to third countries. But he found migrants must have a real chance to argue they could be in serious danger of torture if sent to another country.
Another order in the same case resulted in the Trump administration returning a gay Guatemalan man who had been wrongly deported to Mexico, where he says he had been raped and extorted — the first person known to have been returned to U.S. custody after deportation since the start of Trump’s second term.
The justices confronted a similar issue in Trump’s effort to send Venezuelans accused of being gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador with little chance to challenge the deportations in court.
But in that case, the justices put the brakes on deportations under an 18th century wartime law, saying migrants must get a “reasonable time” to file a court challenge before being removed.
The conservative-majority court has sided with Trump in other immigration cases, however, clearing the way for his administration to end temporary legal protections affecting a total of nearly a million immigrants.
Those victories are among several recent wins the Trump administration has recently racked up before the conservative-majority court as it pushes to move ahead with the president's sweeping agenda on issues ranging from a ban on transgender troops in the military to the dramatic downsizing of the federal government.
Lindsay Whitehurst, The Associated Press
Supreme Court allows Trump to restart swift deportation of migrants away from their home countries
