The Trump administration is fast-tracking deportations following the Supreme Court’s ruling in its favor on Monday.
The high court allowed the Department of Homeland Security to return select illegal immigrants to third countries, or nations that they are not from, without giving detainees a chance to make an emergency plea to stay.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the 6-3 decision means the department “can now execute its lawful authority and remove illegal aliens to a country willing to accept them.”
“Fire up the deportation planes,” McLaughlin said in a statement to the Washington Examiner on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Justice Department’s emergency request to block a lower court ruling, which had required the government to give immigrants an opportunity to make an asylum claim and possibly be spared from deportation.
U.S. immigration law states that an immigrant may only be returned to a country that he or she is not from when it is “impracticable, inadvisable, or impossible” to send that individual to their country of origin or previously designated nation.
The Trump administration was sued by plaintiffs from Cuba, Honduras, Ecuador, and Guatemala who argued that the government disregarded the law and had rushed to remove immigrants without proper process.
“The Supreme Court ruling is a victory for the safety and security of the American people,” McLaughlin said. “The Biden Administration allowed millions of illegal aliens to flood our country, and, now, the Trump Administration can exercise its undisputed authority to remove these criminal illegal aliens and clean up this national security nightmare.”
The National Immigration Litigation Alliance, the head legal group representing the plaintiffs, said the effect of the court’s order will be “horrifying.”
“It strips away critical due process protections that have been protecting our class members from torture and death,” Trina Realmuto, executive director of NILA, said in a statement. “Importantly, however, the Court’s ruling only takes issue with the court’s authority to afford these protections at this intermediate stage of the case. … We now need to move as swiftly as possible to conclude the case and restore these protections.”
In early May, the Trump administration was reportedly moving forward with efforts to deport illegal immigrants to the Eastern Hemisphere, including Libya in North Africa and possibly Ukraine in Eastern Europe.
The deals and flights would mark a further expansion in the number of countries that have agreed to accept their citizens amid the White House’s efforts to broker agreements with countries that have historically refused to do so.
NOEM TO VISIT CENTRAL AMERICA TO OBSERVE ARRIVAL OF DEPORTED ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, MEET WORLD LEADERS
Trump officials are said to be in talks with roughly 30 countries around the world about taking back their citizens from the U.S., according to a report.
Historically, countries including Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela have refused to accept their citizens, which has prompted the U.S. government to look into flying detainees to third countries.