USA: Immigrants Are Being Systematically Returned Home Despite Court Orders

Deplorable. Expect this may be raised by the organizations arguing for non-application of the STCA. Good detailed analysis:

…To deport these immigrants, the administration has partnered with foreign governments, many with spotty human rights records. In exchange for money and foreign policy favors, they have agreed to accept deportees who cannot be returned to their countries of origin.

But a New York Times investigation found that this program results in many of them being pushed back to the very countries where the Trump administration itself cannot legally send them. Some of the United States’ foreign partners have made clear that will happen. And when it does, the Trump administration continues sending planes full of deportees.

The Times identified more than 110 people who had court-ordered protections and were handed over to foreign governments, only to then be passed on to home countries where they risked torture, sexual abuse or persecution — risks that have been validated by American courts.

In these cases, America’s partners served only as intermediaries. Officers roughed up immigrants or forced them onto airplanes. Some were threatened with imprisonment or confronted by armed police officers until they “volunteered” to return. Some now live in hiding. Others have simply vanished.

Human rights groups say that figure, which is certainly an undercount, shows that the Trump administration has created a bank-shot way of evading court orders and international law.

“It’s undermining the idea of asylum on a global scale,” said Alma David, a consultant with the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, referring to such forced repatriations.

“It’s immigration colonialism — making these governments do the dirty work,” she added.

Returning people to their countries of origin in the face of court orders would normally qualify as refoulement, a violation of international law. The State Department would not answer questions about whether its program amounts to refoulement by proxy. The administration has maintained that it has no say in, or responsibility for, what happens to deportees once they leave the United States….The growth of the administration’s third-country deportation program is the story of how the Trump administration sought to remake the asylum system to fit with its views on who deserves protection. It is also the story of how one Trump appointee, working under Secretary of State Marco Rubio, helped transform a State Department office from one that aids refugees into one that oversees deportations.

This article is based on a review of U.S. and foreign government documents, interviews with current and former U.S. and international officials, as well as interviews with deportees and their lawyers. Some spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity, either because they were in perilous situations and feared for their safety, or because they feared retribution for speaking to reporters.

Administration officials say that immigrants who are sent to third countries and then return home often do so voluntarily. But a video from Equatorial Guinea shows immigrants being threatened with imprisonment if they do not agree to leave. Some people who agreed to do so said they felt they had little choice after arriving in a strange country with no documents and no hope of resettling there. Others said they agreed only when armed police officers showed up.

Records show that immigration agents specifically targeted for deportation people who had court-ordered protections. There is no evidence that this was done with the intent of evading court orders. Rather, American officials said the goal was deporting them from the United States. Whatever happened next, they said, was not a priority….

Source: Immigrants Are Being Systematically Returned Home Despite Court Orders