WASHINGTON—Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court stayed, or suspended, a Massachusetts federal district court injunction stopping the deportation of a group of dangerous alien criminals to the nation of South Sudan. The Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) had filed a brief in the Court urging it to do just that.
The aliens—who have been convicted of such crimes as child sexual assault, sexual abuse of the mentally disabled, and murder—claimed that if they were removed to their home countries, they would face torture. But when federal officials asked them if they would consent to being removed to South Sudan—a country that has agreed to take them—instead, they said yes. Nevertheless, the federal district court in Massachusetts enjoined their removal as inconsistent with this country’s treaty obligations under the Convention Against Torture (CAT).
As IRLI showed in its brief, however, the district court did not show how the removals were inconsistent with CAT. Instead, it rewrote and added to the regulations under which the removals were carried out according to the court’s own notions of fair play. As originally drafted, however, these regulations implement CAT as directed by Congress, and therefore have the force of law. And neither the alien plaintiffs nor the district court ever showed that the regulations were not followed here.
In a further development, after the Supreme Court ruled yesterday, the district court quickly defied the Court’s stay of its injunction, by concluding that its subsequent orders designed to enforce that injunction are still in effect, and threatening the government with contempt of court if it removed the alien criminals to South Sudan. The Solicitor General of the United States has subsequently moved the Supreme Court either to clarify the scope of its stay or to remove that particular district court judge from the case.
“Given that all due process has been accorded these criminals, the district court’s lawless maneuvering on their behalf is astonishing, as was the earlier shielding of them from arrest by the sanctuary state of Massachusetts,” said Dale L. Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of IRLI. “The purpose of immigration law enforcement is not just to protect our citizens from dangerous criminals, but to protect American jobs and the full integrity of our borders. Still, deporting known public safety threats is obviously an urgent matter, and the frantic opposition to even that degree of law enforcement, showed here and in so many other instances, seems particularly irrational. We are pleased the Court saw the lawlessness of this lower-court injunction and suspended it pending appeal.”
The case is DHS v. D.V.D., et al., No. 24A1153 (Supreme Court).
