President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly considering deporting some immigrants to countries other than their own. It wouldn’t be the first time if he tried to do that. But as before, he will likely face legal challenges.
According to NBC NewsTrump is considering sending immigrants whose home countries won’t accept U.S. deportees to third countries, including Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas, Panama and Grenada. Currently, many immigrants from so-called “settled countries” are simply released to the United States because they have nowhere to send them.
It was not immediately clear what legal process Trump intends to rely on to drive these deportations to third countries. A representative of the Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment. A regulation and a law currently give the executive branch some power to deport immigrants to third countries; However, the validity of both is an open question.
During his first term, Trump previously sought to use executive power to send asylum seekers of various nationalities to Guatemala in what he called an “asylum cooperative agreement.” Under the agreement, migrants who pass through Guatemala before coming to the United States are sent back unless they first seek protection there. ACLU filed a lawsuit Challenged the policy, but that case was never resolved: The government stopped enforcing the policy during the pandemic and President Joe Biden was elected.
However, the rules remain in the book. If Biden doesn’t revoke it before leaving office, the incoming Trump administration could use it to deport people to countries under consideration — if it holds up in court and if the U.S. can broker similar deals with those countries.
Alternatively, Trump could try to introduce federal immigration laws to allow migrants to be removed to third countries under certain circumstances, such as when they cannot be returned to their home country and the third country is deemed safe for them. There is the ACLU Biden has challenged the use of the law To fast-track the deportation of Venezuelans to Mexico without their consent. The outcome of the case could determine what powers Trump will have to carry out his plan.
Either way, the Trump administration must ensure that migrants are sent to a country where they will be safe, as required by US and international law.
“People are supposed to be safe from oppression and torture [any] Procedures must include adequate screening for fear of recidivism and for a fair process. Katrina IslandACLU Deputy Director of Immigrant Rights Project. “Until it [the Trump administration is] Incentivized to take shortcuts, this is a huge problem and something I’m sure the ACLU and other allies will litigate.”
Briefly explained
The US was Designated 13 countries as returnees As of 2020, including Russia, China, Cuba and Iran. The list has not been publicly updated in the years since, and immigrants have been coming to the United States in increasing numbers from some of those countries.
For example, Chinese citizens fear US southern border from less than 2,000 in fiscal year 2022 to more than 36,000 in 2024. Many of them are fleeing economic hardship and political persecution following the country’s strict pandemic-era lockdown But China is reluctant to accept its own citizens: the US sent a large evacuation flight to China in July For the first time in six years.
Although Venezuela has not previously been on the list of unsavory countries, this too Stop taking deportation flights from the United States in February after the implementation of the US ban. While the United States previously turned back a fraction of the millions fleeing Venezuela’s dictatorship, the Biden administration viewed the deportation flights as a deterrent to further immigration. US immigration agent Over 300,000 encounters have been recorded With Venezuelans in fiscal year 2024.
All of these people, numbering at least several thousand, could be targets of a deportation program that sends immigrants to third countries under Trump.
Can Trump really deport people to third countries?
Whether Trump can deport large numbers of people to third countries may depend on what happens in the ACLU’s pending cases. But, again, existing legal authorities may allow him to remove at least some.
The ACLU challenged the rules underlying the U.S. treaty with Guatemala in its lawsuit, arguing that the treaty does not provide adequate screening to determine whether Guatemalans face a “credible fear” of persecution. Under US and international law, migrants cannot be returned to places where they would face such credible threats. At the time the treaty was established, Guatemala had the ninth-highest homicide rate in the world, with about 26 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, and the State Department issued a Travel Warning For US citizens in Guatemala.
The rules also demand that asylum seekers be sent only to countries where they have “access to a full and fair procedure for determining claims for asylum or equivalent temporary protection.” The Trump administration has certified that Guatemala’s legal framework meets that standard despite the island’s “absolute lack of evidence in the administrative record, and indeed … much evidence to the contrary.”
It’s unclear whether the same legal reasoning would apply to any similar deals Trump might broker with Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas, Panama and Grenada.
But in the meantime, Biden still has a chance to withdraw the underlying rule that would allow additional contracts to be implemented.
“With more than a month to go before the inauguration, they can’t do anything, the rules are still there. In theory, the Trump administration could come in and sign the new deal,” Eiland said.
In its other lawsuit challenging the deportation of Venezuelans to Mexico, the ACLU argued that such use of third-country removal authorities is unprecedented and would result in “removals in circumstances where non-citizens may face persecution or torture.” The law creates a detailed process for determining when an immigrant can be deported to a third country, and the ACLU has argued that the Biden administration is not complying with it.
If the court upholds Biden’s use of the law, it would potentially open the door for Trump to do the same for additional citizens of unsavory countries, giving him another tool with which to implement his mass deportation plan.
