By Nelson A. King
NEW YORK, Sept 30, CMC – Immigration advocates have expressed disappointment at the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) after it sided with the Trump administration, allowing it to resume fast track deportations of Caribbean and other immigrants to third-party countries.
The ruling came even as the legal challenge to the policy is continuing before the courts here with SCOTUS also indicating that it will hear oral arguments at the end of this year to determine its final ruling.
The court’s order overturns lower courts’ findings that Caribbean and other immigrants have a constitutional right to “meaningful notice” and a hearing to object if they fear torture or persecution in the designated third country.
“Every person who resides here deserves access to due process before being removed from the country they call home,” said Murad Awawdeh, president and chief executive officer of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella policy and advocacy organization that represents over 200 immigrant and refugee rights groups.
He told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that by allowing the Trump administration to resume these third-party deportations, the Supreme Court has opened the door for people to be rapidly deported to countries they do not have any connection to–including personal or family ties–having to face language and cultural barriers, as well as possibly persecution or torture.
“No one should have to live with the fear that their loved one could be sent thousands of miles away to an unfamiliar country without a meaningful opportunity to have their day in court. A country that deports people without a hearing is not enforcing its laws. It is abandoning them.”
Awawdeh said the court’s ruling is “another tool the federal government is using to expand its mass deportation agenda, putting more lives at risk and destabilizing our communities.
“The Trump administration must end this inhumane practice and stop treating people’s lives as disposable, and provide individuals in deportation proceedings—often facing life or death consequences— the right to counsel and due process,” Awawdeh said, adding “we will not accept a system where people’s lives are treated as cargo.”
He said that, under third party deportation diplomatic agreements, the Trump administration has deported an estimated 25,000 immigrants to more than two dozen third countries including the Caribbean, since January 2025.
Earlier this month, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) adopted a sweeping new legal interpretation designed to compel states to assist the Trump administration’s immigration crackdowns.
Awawdeh noted that the administration’s Office of Legal Counsel outlined a new path for the federal government to “yank federal funding from states that don’t aid the administration’s mass deportation push.
“At a time when every working family is struggling to pay their bills, buy groceries and fill up their tanks, the Trump administration is coming up with new ways to attack immigrants instead of bolstering our economy and reducing inflation,” he said.
“This new interpretation is designed to push immigrants further into the shadows, hurt needy families, but also to turn states into extensions of the federal government.
“This is flagrantly cruel authoritarian overreach that is sure to end up in the courts,” Awawdeh said noting that undocumented Caribbean and other immigrants contribute nearly US$100 billion to the US economy.
He said pushing them into the deportation pipeline will “hurt all of us.
“Maybe, the administration could spend more time on coming up with new ideas to spur economic growth and support all families,” Awawdeh said.
CMC/nk/ir/2026