Washington, Nov 9 (IANS) A federal judge in New York has barred the Trump administration from deporting five Afghan nationals to Pakistan, Afghanistan or any other third country for now, extending emergency relief that had been set to expire over the weekend.
US District Judge Victor Marrero of the Southern District of New York issued the Decision and Order on Friday.
“The Government is enjoined from deporting the Afghan Nationals identified by Project Rousseau, Inc. and identified in Dkt. No. 16 to Pakistan, Afghanistan, or any other third country pending further order of this Court,” Marrero ordered.
The government must also notify the court and Project Rousseau of any plans to deport the five “no later than one week before any such deportation,” the order said.
Project Rousseau, a nonprofit that provides legal services to asylum seekers, sued on November 2, naming Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director David J. Venturella, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Attorney General Todd Blanche and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as defendants in their official capacities.
These five individuals are Mahboba Baqeri, Mohammad Amir Hassani, Mohammad Sarwar Khudadad, Riza Ataye and Sakina Beegzad. Each has a final order of removal and is detained in Texas or Louisiana facilities, according to the declaration.
On November 3, Part I Judge Valerie Caproni issued a temporary restraining order holding the government to its representation that there were “no planned or confirmed chartered or commercial flights” to deport Afghan nationals to Afghanistan or Pakistan, and that such arrangements take weeks. That order was set to expire on Saturday, November 7, at 11:59 p.m.
Marrero, to whom the case was then assigned, amended and extended the restraining order pending further court action, rejecting at this stage the government’s arguments that immigration statutes stripped the court of jurisdiction.
He wrote that the suit concerns “the procedures the Government must follow when, after it decides to remove a person, it chooses to remove them to a country not identified in the removal order,” rather than a challenge to the execution of final removal orders themselves.
The temporary order does not decide the ultimate lawfulness of the planned removals and does not certify a class. It preserves the status quo for the five identified individuals while the amended pleadings and preliminary-injunction briefing proceed.
A temporary restraining order is an emergency court order that preserves the status quo for a short period so a judge can consider whether longer preliminary injunctive relief is warranted.
–IANS
lkj/ksk/as
