The Trump administration could migrate to countries where immigrants are not involved. In some cases, there is a six-hour notice and without assurance that deported individuals will not be “persecuted or tortured,” migrants, according to a new memo from the immigrants’ chief executive.
The immigration customs enforcement memo, which states that the policy will be “effective immediately,” was issued by acting director Todd Lyons on July 9th. It provides ice guidance to employees on how to force people into countries outside of their country of origin, and “in harsh circumstances” even if they were at risk of being persecuted or tortured there.
“If the United States receives diplomatic guarantees from a country of removal that aliens removed from the United States are not subject to persecution or torture, if the State Department believes those guarantees are reliable, the aliens may be removed without needing further steps,” said a memo originally reported by the Washington Post and a memo released in court filings.
The Lions writes “in all other cases” that the US has not received those guarantees. ICE must adhere to several procedures, including ICE personnel serving immigrants, in a notice of removal, in which the federal government lists countries that expel them in languages understood by immigrants. We will not ask positively whether the person is afraid of being sent to the country. And before you take the person out of the US before waiting at least 24 hours
But “in an emergency situation,” Lions wrote, officers can banish a person in just six hours, as long as the person “provides reasonable means and opportunity to speak to an attorney.”
Immigrants who may be subject to the policy include those who have been given a final removal order but who have determined that if a judge is deported from an integrated country they are still at risk of persecution or torture, as well as those from countries where the United States lacks diplomatic relations and established capabilities to expel them from countries such as Cuba.
The memo says ice officers are told not to ask immigrants if they fear deportation to third countries, but those who express such fear will be introduced as potential protection within 24 hours. That screening could lead to immigrants being referred to immigrants for further lawsuits and ice.
Trina Lelmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, is involved in a federal lawsuit challenging the deportation of migrant citizens, but in a statement to NBC News, the memo establishes a policy of “blatantly disregarding the requirements required by law, regulations and constitution.”
She said the memo means there is no process at all when it asserts that the government has reliable diplomatic guarantees for migrants deported to third countries. These assurances are “illegal,” she added, as they do not protect the exile from persecution and torture at the hands of non-state actors.
Realmuto also criticized the government for not publicly sharing the countries that have obtained diplomatic guarantees with what those countries have exchanged.
The rest of the policies are “awfully shortage,” she said.
“It provides a small amount of time between six and 24 hours of notice before deportation to a third country. This is not enough time to assess whether you will be persecuted or tortured in that third country, especially if you don’t know anything about the country or have no lawyer,” Realmuto says.
In a statement to NBC News Tuesday before the memo was released, the Department of Homeland Security said the agency “has successfully negotiated nearly 12 safe third-party agreements.”
“If a country has not received its citizens, other countries have agreed that they will take them. It is very important to ensure that we get the worst criminal and illegal alien from our country,” Deputy Director Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “That’s why these agreements that ensure legitimate procedures under the US Constitution are extremely crucial to the safety of our hometowns and our American people.”
The ICE memo follows the Supreme Court ruling in June, allowing the Trump administration to deport immigrants to countries without previous connections.
The verdict puts on hold on the order of a federal judge who said convicted offenders should have a “meaning opportunity” to bring claims that if the administration has made a deal to receive foreign migrants, they will be at risk of torture, persecution or death.
Judge Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a disagreement that the court “rewards lawlessness” by allowing the administration to violate immigrants’ due process rights.
The fact that “thousands of people suffer violence in far-reaching areas” is less important to a conservative majority than the “remote potential” that federal judges exceed his authority, Sotomayor said.
