Trump Asks Top Court To Lift Limits On Third-Country Deportations

Judge Had Earlier Ruled Migrants Cannot Be Sent To South Sudan Without Due Process

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WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump's administration asked the US Supreme Court on May 27 to intervene in its effort to rapidly deport migrants to countries other than their own without the opportunity to raise claims that they fear being persecuted, tortured or killed there.

The Justice Department requested that the justices lift Boston-based US District Judge Brian Murphy's nationwide injunction requiring that migrants be given the chance to seek legal relief from deportation before they are sent to so-called "third countries," while litigation continues in the case.

The administration said in its filing the third-country process is critical to removing migrants who commit crimes because their countries of origin are often unwilling to take them back.

"As a result, criminal aliens are often allowed to stay in the United States for years on end, victimizing law-abiding Americans in the meantime," it told the justices. The filing represented the administration's latest trip to the nation's highest judicial body as it seeks a freer hand to pursue Mr. Trump's crackdown on immigration and contest lower court decisions that have impeded the Republican president's policies.

The administration has said Judge Murphy's injunction is preventing potentially thousands of pending deportations.

The injunction "disrupts sensitive diplomatic, foreign policy and national security efforts," it said in May 27's filing.