The First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston on May 16 rejected the Trump administration’s bid to lift a judge’s order preventing the swift deportation of illegal immigrants to countries other than their own.
The bid was to appeal U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy’s May 7 ruling ordering that the illegal immigrant first be given notice in a language he or she understood, and an opportunity to claim protection under U.S. law so they could raise any claims that they might be persecuted, tortured, or killed if they were to be deported to a certain country.
Murphy’s ruling comes after he issued a preliminary injunction on April 18, prohibiting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from carrying out deportations to third-party-countries unless the detainee is first given that written notice, a chance to request a reasonable fear screening, and at least 15 days to file a motion to reopen his or her immigration case if the screening is denied.
However, the plaintiffs in the class action case filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order, citing reports alleging that several illegal immigrants, including several Laotian, Filipino, and Vietnamese nationals—were about to be flown on a U.S. Air Force C-17 from Kelly Field, Texas, to Misrata Airport in Libya without those protections in place.
They also pointed out that the Department of Defense flew four Venezuelans to El Salvador from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after Murphy’s initial ruling.
Murphy sided with the defendants, saying the deportation was a violation of the Fifth Amendment.
“If there is any doubt—the Court sees none—the allegedly imminent removals, as reported by news agencies and as Plaintiffs seek to corroborate with class-member accounts and public information, would clearly violate this Court’s Order,” Murphy wrote in his May 7 ruling.
The three-judge appeals panel said it had “concerns with the new guidance issued by the DHS governing such deportations, and “the irreparable harm that will result from wrongful removals in this context.”
Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo, after meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in February, also announced that his nation would be willing to hold non-Guatemalan illegal immigrants being deported from the United States.
