A federal judge in Florida has blocked the government from deporting the 92 Somalis who made it to West Africa before some yet-to-be-explained glitch caused their deportation flight to return to the US. See previous posts here and here.
The usual argument is being raised that we can’t possibly return migrants who have committed crimes in the US back to S***hole countries. It would be inhumane, immigrant activists claim.
So, what this says to me is, if we will be barred from sending lawbreakers back, then we must vigorously keep them out of the US in the first place through robust screening.
Otherwise, taxpayers will be expected to pay for their incarceration for years!
From Courthouse News:
MIAMI (CN) – A federal judge temporarily blocked the government from deporting a group of Somali immigrants who say they were shackled and handcuffed for two days by immigration officials during a failed deportation attempt last month.
In a ruling issued Friday in Miami federal court, U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles said that the 92 Somali immigrants have the right to reopen their removal orders because they are looking “to apply or re-apply for asylum or withholding of deportation based on changed circumstances arising in the country of nationality or in the country to which deportation has been ordered.”
[….]
For decades, Somali nationals were rarely deported from the U.S. mainly because their country lacks a “functioning central government,” according to Gayles’ 14-page ruling, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement began deporting Somalis more often after changes to U.S. policies last year under the Trump administration.
Of course they blame it on Trump, but Obama was deporting Somalis as we told you here in 2013, and in 2005 the US Supreme Court said the US can send aliens back to where they came from—even to hellhole countries.
The botched deportation is now used as a further excuse about why they face threats in Somalia:
The immigrants argue that the international media attention surrounding the botched deportation has made it unsafe for them to return to Somalia because they would be targets of the extremist group Al-Shabaab, which believes that people returning to Somalia after living in Western nations for a long period of time are enemies of their cause.
[….]
U.S. law prohibits the deportation of individuals to countries where they could face political persecution or torture.
I bet those sneaky immigration lawyers never told the Judge that the Supreme Court said in 2005 that such deportations were legal, see here. The fact that the Bush Administration didn’t do it, doesn’t make it a law!
Lisa Lehner, a senior litigation attorney with Americans for Immigrant Justice, said in a statement that “the court’s thorough review of what it termed the ‘exceptional circumstances’ of this case reveals a depth of understanding of the plight of these individuals.”
The Somali immigrants are represented by Americans for Immigrant Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union, University of Miami Law Clinic, University of Minnesota Law School’s Center for New Americans and Broward Legal Aid.
More here.
My prediction: This batch will be released back into your towns and cities. Minnesota here they come!
