US judge questions 'troublesome' Trump policy to fast-track deportations

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON, April 10 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Thursday expressed concern with what he called a "troublesome" new Trump administration policy that appears to allow authorities to rapidly deport hundreds of migrants to countries they had no notice they could be sent to before they can even raise a claim that they might be killed upon arrival.

U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy during a hearing in Boston pressed a lawyer for the administration on how migrants subject to final deportation orders could be assured due process under guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

That guidance was issued after Murphy on March 28 issued a temporary restraining order blocking President Donald Trump's administration from deporting migrants to countries not raised in earlier immigration proceedings without giving them a chance to show they feared being persecuted or tortured there.

In the fiscal year 2023, 1,769 people with final orders of removal were granted limited forms of protection against return to countries where their life or freedom would be threatened or where they faced a risk of torture.

Under the new guidance, before a migrant can be deported to a different, newly identified country, the U.S. government needs to have received diplomatic assurances that they will not be persecuted or tortured there.

If the United States has not received such assurances or does not believe them to be credible, authorities would need to provide the migrant notice and assess any fears they raise of torture before they can be removed.

The Justice Department has asked Murphy, an appointee of Trump's Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, to vacate his restraining order in light of the new guidance and not issue a longer-term preliminary injunction as a group of migrants subject to final orders of removal are urging.

But Murphy during the hearing questioned what would stop immigration authorities under this new guidance from picking up a migrant already subject to a deportation order off the street and loading him or her onto a plane minutes after being told it was headed to a newly identified country where the individual might be killed.

"That seems very troublesome to me," he said.

U.S. Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign responded that those deportable migrants could have raised those concerns earlier during immigration court proceedings or move to reopen those proceedings to raise any fear-based claims they had.

"So it's your position that there is no constitutional or statutory infirmity to send someone to a country where they have an individualized, uncontroverted fear of death?" Murphy asked.

"No, your honor, where they could have raised it previously and did not do so," Ensign said.

Trina Realmuto, a lawyer for a group of migrants at the National Immigration Litigation Alliance who sued to block their deportations, said such an opportunity would not exist in practice, as immigration judges would consider claims about hypothetical countries they could be sent to premature or vague.

She said without an injunction, the Trump administration would be free to conduct a "bait and switch" by notifying migrants initially of one country they might be sent to, often where they had citizenship, before sending them somewhere else.

Murphy said he planned to rule on the injunction request within a week.

The case is D.V.D. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, No. 1:25-cv-1067.

For the plaintiffs: Trina Realmuto of National Immigration Litigation Alliance and Matt Adams of Northwest Immigrant Rights Project

For the United States: Drew Ensign of the U.S. Department of Justice

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