Overview

• Under a July 9 memo from Acting Director Todd Lyons, ICE can deport migrants with final removal orders to non-home countries with as little as six hours’ notice in exigent circumstances or no notice when diplomatic assurances are secured.
• Eight migrants from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Sudan and Vietnam have already been flown to South Sudan under the new third-country removal policy.
• The administration is negotiating agreements with Liberia, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Gabon to accept deportees from elsewhere as part of the expanded strategy.
• Migrants who express fear of removal to a third country must receive a humanitarian protection screening within 24 hours under federal law and the Convention Against Torture.
• Civil rights groups have filed lawsuits challenging the policy’s abbreviated notice requirements and questioning its compliance with due process and human rights protections.