Trump Asks SCOTUS To Let Him Deport People To Countries That Will Torture Them

Thanks to the Convention Against Torture, of which the United States is a signatory, the US is forbidden by law from deporting a person to a country where they have reason to believe the individual could be persecuted or tortured. However, the administration is now asking the Supreme Court to allow them to use a loophole in the torture agreement to send people to areas of the world where torture could happen, but maybe also won’t happen. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains what’s happening.

Subscribe to stay connected to our stories

Support us by becoming a member on YouTube

Or Support us on Patreon

Buy Ring of Fire merch

Find us on social media!

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Several decades ago, the United States passed a law to ratify the United States involvement in the Convention against Torture, which is an international treaty, you know, not supporting torture, and of course not supporting countries that are known to engage in torturing people. Pretty simple, pretty smart, pretty easy to get along with, right? If you are torturing your citizens, we don't want anything to do to you. And if people from your country, and this is the important part, come to our country, we are not gonna send them back because you're going to torture them. Well, as you can imagine, the United States right now with our mass deportation sending people to countries they've never even been to on different continents, um, we're running into a bit of a problem because the Trump administration apparently wants to send some of these people to countries that are known for torturing foreigners, prisoners, deportees, and anyone with a lifestyle that does not, you know, is not approved by the government, but federal law prohibits that.

But the Trump administration thinks that they have found a loophole because in that law it says, but you can send somebody to a country that has been known for torture. If the country like promises, they're not gonna torture this person. So the Trump administration has a case in front of the Supreme Court where they're literally arguing that we should be able to send immigrants to other countries, including countries where they may not be from, even if that government may torture them, because the government can tell us we're totally not gonna torture them, and we'll take them at their word. Even though again, these countries are known for torturing people. So the Trump administration is saying, we can totally trust the word of these human rights violators. You know, yes, they violate human rights every day, but they're definitely not gonna do it with our people that we're sending because they super swore that they weren't gonna do it. That is the argument that this administration is making in front of the Supreme Court. The fact that this is not one of the biggest news stories in the country right now blows my mind. They want to send people to countries where they know they will be tortured. Whether it's because they were, you know, seeking asylum for political persecution, seeking asylum here in the United States because their lifestyle is illegal in that country. Whatever it is, they will be tortured and likely killed

If we send them back to those countries. And the United States signed an agreement and passed a bill saying, we won't do that. We will not send people out of this country to their certain doom. And the Trump administration is telling the Supreme Court, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, maybe that's not a bad idea. Right? Here's the thing about this. First and foremost, you can't take countries that are known for violating human rights at their word, because the whole violating human rights thing shows that these are not trustworthy countries. So there goes that right off the bat. That loophole that they think they found is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Here's the second one. We won't know if they're lying because let's say we get a country that says, no, no, no, we're totally not gonna torture these people. And the Supreme Court says, okay, Donald, send them over there.