The Supreme Court shot down a district court judge’s bid to circumvent an order allowing the Trump administration to resume third-country deportations.
Though the Supreme Court cleared the path June 23 for the administration to quickly deport illegal migrants to countries not specified in their removal orders, Biden-appointed District Court Judge Brian Murphy claimed hours later that one of his orders preventing the deportation of eight migrants to South Sudan remained in effect.
In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court agreed Thursday that Murphy violated its order, noting the “only authority” he cited was the dissent.
“Our June 23 order stayed the April 18 preliminary injunction in full,” the majority held. “The May 21 remedial order cannot now be used to enforce an injunction that our stay rendered unenforceable.”
The Trump administration previously urged the Supreme Court to clarify its order, accusing Murphy of “unprecedented defiance” of the high court’s authority. Murphy’s ruling was “a lawless act of defiance that, once again, disrupts sensitive diplomatic relations and slams the brakes on the Executive’s lawful efforts to effectuate third-country removals,” the administration wrote its June 24 motion.
Even Justice Elena Kagan, who dissented from the original decision, agreed the lower court could not continue to block the deportations.
“I voted to deny the Government’s previous stay application in this case, and I continue to believe that this Court should not have stayed the District Court’s April 18 order enjoining the Government from deporting non-citizens to third countries without notice or a meaningful opportunity to be heard,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a concurring opinion. “But a majority of this Court saw things differently, and I do not see how a district court can compel compliance with an order that this Court has stayed.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissent, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, that the government “may not deport noncitizens to a country where they are likely to be tortured or killed.”
“Given that the majority can muster no more than a sentence of 80-year-old dictum in support of today’s holding, the District Court can hardly be faulted for reaching a contrary conclusion,” Sotomayor wrote. “The District Court, moreover, had only moments to decide the question, for (unlike this Court) it realized that the lives and safety of eight noncitizens were at stake.”
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