The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to block an appeals court rule requiring a meaningful chance to object to third-country deportations. The ruling does not ban removals outright; the administration said it forced cancellation of a 70-person flight.
The administration said the ruling arrived minutes before midnight Wednesday and that canceling the flight required renewed diplomatic engagement with three countries it did not identify. Lawyers for immigrants cited sources saying a flight was planned from Alexandria, Louisiana, to Burundi, Rwanda and the Central African Republic.
The appeals court ended an earlier order allowing flights to continue during the legal challenge. The administration argues the new requirement would cause unreasonable delays and force it to rework agreements with other countries. It says it sends people with final deportation orders to third countries when their homelands will not accept them or they cannot be returned. DHS general counsel James Percival said 25,000 people in the U.S. illegally had been deported this way. Lawyers for two men deported to Equatorial Guinea said police beat them and held them at gunpoint in a hotel converted into a detention center.
