The New York Times reports:

Mustapha Camara and immigrants like him had court protections that they thought made them safe from the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. They found themselves swept up nonetheless.

To deport these immigrants, the administration has partnered with foreign governments, many with spotty human rights records. In exchange for money and foreign policy favors, they have agreed to accept deportees who cannot be returned to their countries of origin.

But a New York Times investigation found that this program results in many of them being pushed back to the very countries where the Trump administration itself cannot legally send them. Some of the United States’ foreign partners have made clear that will happen. And when it does, the Trump administration continues sending planes full of deportees.

The Times identified more than 110 people who had court-ordered protections and were handed over to foreign governments, only to then be passed on to home countries where they risked torture, sexual abuse or persecution — risks that have been validated by American courts.

In these cases, America’s partners served only as intermediaries. Officers roughed up immigrants or forced them onto airplanes. Some were threatened with imprisonment or confronted by armed police officers until they “volunteered” to return. Some now live in hiding. Others have simply vanished.

Human rights groups say that figure, which is certainly an undercount, shows that the Trump administration has created a bank-shot way of evading court orders and international law.

“It’s undermining the idea of asylum on a global scale,” said Alma David, a consultant with the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, referring to such forced repatriations.

“It’s immigration colonialism — making these governments do the dirty work,” she added.

Returning people to their countries of origin in the face of court orders would normally qualify as refoulement, a violation of international law. [Continue reading…]