Under the second Trump administration, Americans have witnessed an unusual phenomenon: almost a dozen countries have agreed to receive deportees who are not citizens of those nations.
The fact has several dimensions, one of them in the domestic level. The current federal authorities have opted that this procedure will discourage migration and encourage self -exporting, considered one of its priorities.
It is, without a doubt, one of the features that make a central difference with respect to previous administrations. “This is not a strategy that the United States government has systematically used,” pointed out Professor Cristina Rodríguez, from the University of Yale, “especially to the extent that they are deporting people to war areas, such as South Sudan, or prisons, as happened in El Salvador.”
The turn
Deportations to third countries are not a new practice. They are contemplated in the Immigration and Nationality Law (INA), which allows the Department of National Security (DHS) to deport an immigrant to a country other than yours, but only in very specific circumstances.
Normally, in their deportation opinions, the judges designate the country to which the immigrant will generally be sent their own country. Only if it is impracticable, advisable or impossible, the INA authorizes DHS to expel a third country abroad.
Last April, Federal Judge Brian E. Murphy It prohibited the government from sending immigrants to third countries without previously evaluating possible claims under the United Nations Convention against torture.
By not providing immigrants with a “significant opportunity” to raise their fear of deportation, the government violated its constitutional right to due process, according to the judge.
Supreme Court allows Trump Expedite deportation of migrants to third countries
The judge then issued a temporary suspension order of that policy, after several immigrant lawyers sued the government for abrupt changes in deportation destinations, in this case, to a country of quite a bad press: Sudan from the South.
But history would not be complete without an important detail. Despite Murphy’s order, the Administration tried to deport several African nation. These were eight men of southern nationalities, Mexican, Laosiana, Burmana and Vietnamese, in addition to two Cubans.
Given this situation, Murphy threatened to declare in contempt of Trump officials. He ordered to stop the deportation flight during a scale in an American military base in Yibuti, a country located in the African horn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naje80_yhwk
Trump administration officials convened a press conference to denounce the judge and falsely accuse him of endangering agents of the United States Immigration and Customs Control Service with the deportees, all with a criminal record.
However, the judge made it clear that he gave the administration the possibility of returning immigrants to the United States, to receive the corresponding notification and have the opportunity to consult with their lawyers.
In that scenario, in June there was a turn: in response to an emergency application of the Government, the United States Supreme Court ruled that it could deport exceptively to foreigners to countries with which they had no previous links.
As usual in this type of legal resources, the judges offered no explanation that would support their position. But the three liberal magistrates – Sonomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – disagreed. Speaking for them, the first described the fact of “abuse” of the power of the court, equivalent, wrote, to “reward the illegality” of the administration.
The lawyers of the immigrants who had appealed to the courts affirmed that to their defenders that green light would make them “vulnerable to torture or death in dangerous countries.”
But, despite everything, there was a loophole: Murphy and other judges could continue to block those deportations in individual cases. The legal basis is that, according to US legislation and the United Nations Convention against torture, people cannot be deported to third countries if they can demonstrate the probability of suffering torture.
Latin America and Africa
Bajo Trump, Venezuelans and immigrants from Afghanistan, Russia, Iran, China and other countries have been sent to Costa Rica and Panama due to these treatments. Last month, Paraguay signed an agreement in that regard with the Trump administration. (Mexico has not done it, but has accepted deportees from Central America and other countries of the Western hemisphere such as Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela).
One of the best known cases is that of El Salvador, the result of a agreement With the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, last February; The same with Guatemala. Both nations agreed to accept deportation flights from their own citizens and other nationalities.
According to transcended, the United States paid El Salvador about 6 million dollars to receive 238 alleged members of the Venezuelan Train of Aragua in the Center for Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT), the notorious megaprision built by President Nayib Bukele, where everything is possible.
In the case of Africa, in addition to South Sudan, Rwanda has agreed to receive up to 250 deported.
Esuatini, another difficult country, received five convicted of serious crimes. According to transcended, they are kept in maximum security prisons.
The five immigrants deported to Esuatini are held in insulation regime, reports spokesperson
One of the last to enter the list is Ghana, who receives only Deported Western Africa. Among the immigrants that the US government deported recently are thirteen Nigerians and a Gambian. The Gambian authorities reported last Monday that 14 deportees had been sent to their respective countries.
Human rights groups have argued that most African nations who have received them have in common a history that goes from poor to problematic in human rights. And that they are not prepared to accept them, even if they have agreed to do so in exchange for financial compensation or diplomatic pressures.
In short, the green light of the Supreme Court endorsed and in fact stimulated government efforts to establish agreements with a set of Third World countries so that they accept non -national deportees.
Alignment with its policies is what has happened with many emergency requests from the Government to Supreme. In the highest step of justice, a conservative supermay is positioned that, for more details, has three magistrates designated by Donald Trump.
