In matters of life and death, it is best to proceed with caution. In this case, the Government took the opposite approach. It wrongfully deported one plaintiff to Guatemala, even though an Immigration Judge found he was likely to face torture there. - Sonia Sotomayor -, Justice, Supreme Court of the United States
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES No. 24A1153
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, ET AL. v. D.V. D., ET AL.
ON APPLICATION FOR STAY [June 23, 2025] T
he application for stay presented to JUSTICE JACKSON and by her referred to the Court is granted. The April 18, 2025, preliminary injunction of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, case No. 25–cv– 10676, is stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari.
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE KAGAN and JUSTICE JACKSON join, dissenting.
In matters of life and death, it is best to proceed with caution. In this case, the Government took the opposite approach. It wrongfully deported one plaintiff to Guatemala, even though an Immigration Judge found he was likely to face torture there. Then, in clear violation of a court order, it deported six more to South Sudan, a nation the State Department considers too unsafe for all but its most critical personnel. An attentive District Court’s timely intervention only narrowly prevented a third set of unlawful removals to Libya. Rather than allowing our lower court colleagues to manage this high-stakes litigation with the care and attention Rather than allowing our lower court colleagues to manage this high-stakes litigation with the care and attention [2 DHS v. D.V.D. SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting] it plainly requires, this Court now intervenes to grant the Government emergency relief from an order it has repeatedly defied. I cannot join so gross an abuse of the Court’s equitable discretion.
This case concerns the Government’s ability to conduct what is known as a “third country removal,” meaning a removal to any “country with a government that will accept the alien.” §1231(b)(1)(C)(iv); see §1231(b)(2)(E)(vii). Third-country removals are burdensome for the affected noncitizen, so Congress has sharply limited their use. They are permissible only after the Government tries each and every alternative noted in the statute, and determines they are all “impracticable, inadvisable, or impossible.” §§1231(b)(1)(C)(iv), (2)(E)(vii). Noncitizens facing removal of any sort are entitled under international and domestic law to raise a claim under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Dec. 10, 1984, S. Treaty Doc. No. 100–20, 1465 U. N. T. S. 113. Article 3 of the Convention prohibits returning any person “to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing
Noncitizens facing removal of any sort are entitled under international and domestic law to raise a claim under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Dec. 10, 1984, S. Treaty Doc. No. 100–20, 1465 U. N. T. S. 113. Article 3 of the Convention prohibits returning any person “to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing
Those regulations provide, among other things, that “[a] removal order . . . shall not be executed in circumstances that would violate Article 3.” 28 CFR §200.1 (2024).
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