Geneva, Switzerland — UN experts decried Tuesday the US resumption of migrant deportations to third countries, including to war-torn South Sudan, stressing Washington’s obligation to ensure it is not sending people into harm’s way.
The experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations, voiced alarm at the rights implications of a recent Supreme Court ruling allowing US President Donald Trump’s administration to go ahead with deportations of foreign nationals to countries other than their own.
“International law is clear that no one shall be sent anywhere where there are substantial grounds for believing that the person would be in danger of being subjected to … torture, enforced disappearance or arbitrary deprivation of life,” 11 independent UN rights experts said in a statement.
Following the ruling, a group of eight migrants deported from the United States and stranded for weeks at a military base in Djibouti arrived in South Sudan on Saturday.
Only one of the deportees is from South Sudan but the Trump administration has sought to remove unwanted migrants to third countries as other nations sometimes refuse to accept returnees.
“To protect people from torture and other prohibited cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, enforced disappearances, and risks to life, they must be given an opportunity to express their objections to removal in a legally supervised procedure,” said the experts, including the UN special rapporteurs on torture and on the rights of migrants.
But they warned that “the US’ expedited removal procedure could allow people to be taken to a country other than their own in as little as a single day, without an immigration court hearing or other appearance before a judge”.
The experts stressed that assessments of potential dangers faced by deportees “must be individual as well as country-specific”.
They highlighted that the United States had agreed to adhere to international obligations to prevent so-called refoulement, including under the Convention Against Torture.
The experts called on Washington “to refrain from any further removals to third countries, to ensure effective access to legal assistance for those facing deportation, and (for) all such procedures to be subject to independent judicial oversight”.
