Trump administration asks the Supreme Court to allow quick third-country deportations to continue

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to again clear the way for continued quick deportations of immigrants to third countries where they have no ties.

The government asked for an immediate halt to lower court orders finding that people must have the chance to object before the U.S. government deports them to countries other than their homelands.

The justices previously allowed the deportation flights to temporarily continue when the case came before them last year. Since then, an appeals court has upheld a Boston-based judge’s final ruling that migrants must have a meaningful chance to argue a third-country deportation would put them in danger of persecution or torture.

The ruling didn’t prohibit those deportations outright but it lengthens the process. The government argues it has already led to the cancellation of a flight carrying 70 people with criminal convictions to three different countries.

“The government has been able to remove thousands of aliens to third countries in recent months, and thousands more are eligible for such removal,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote.

Trump’s Republican administration has said that it sends people to third countries when it is unable to quickly return them to their homelands. Those third-country governments provide assurances that people won’t be persecuted or tortured, attorneys said.

The lower courts’ legal requirements would mean cascading delays and could force the reworking of agreements with foreign countries, attorneys wrote.

The Trump administration has deported thousands of people under a series of agreements with nearly two dozen countries, including South Sudan, Equatorial Guinea and Panama.

This month, lawyers for two men deported to Equatorial Guinea said they were beaten and held at gunpoint in a hotel-turned-detention center by police who covered their heads with bags.

The case comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by the Trump administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally.

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Lindsay Whitehurst, The Associated Press