Just because a lawsuit is filed, doesn’t mean the plaintiffs will prevail.
The case must be tried; all appeals heard and then a suitable remedy applied, if they are found to be in violation. In that case, the remedy will be to tell the administration to stop using that agreement.
Given that Venezuela is once again accepting deportees, there will be no real impact.
My opinion is that the administration will prevail. They are deporting not rendering. Internal administration documents will clearly show that to be the case.
Your being very shortsighted. What happens to the cases for the immigrants if the agreement used to imprison them is found to be illegal?
The plaintiff’s case is very strong. For all your nitpicking the difference between rendering and deporting, you missed the basis for the lawsuit.
The Administrative Procedure Act authorizes judicial review of final
agency action. 5 U.S.C. § 704.
Under the APA, federal agencies such as the State Department cannot
take final actions that are contrary to law or constitutional right, arbitrary and
capricious, or in excess of statutory authority. See id. § 706(2)(A)–(C).
The agreement entered into by the State Department is considered an action and can’t violate the law or constitution in any way. It is very likely they will lose this lawsuit.
They are untouchable as long as they remain out of the US. But I believe that is a moot point. They were deported, not rendered. The administration will produce that documentation.
The case hinges on whether or not they were deported versus rendered. If they were rendered, then their due process was violated and under the APA the judiciary can act.
If they were deported, they are not entitled to due process once they are in the receiving country.
I’m confident, the administration is very cognizant of the legal difference between render and deport. I would be shocked if they weren’t very explicit in their use of deportation.
It doesn’t matter if they were rendered or deported. You’re being naive if you think they have the documentation. They were already required by law to provide them and they have not.
The Case-Zablocki Act, 1 U.S.C. § 112b, requires that the State
Department report to the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign
Relations Committee on all international agreements that were “signed, concluded, or otherwise finalized the prior month” and those that “entered into force” or “became operative” during the prior month. The Agreement is contrary to the Case-Zablocki Act because the State Department has not submitted any required report about the Agreement to the relevant committees. See Letter from Gregory Meeks, Ranking Member, House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Joaquin Castro, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, to Marco Rubio, Secretary of State (Apr. 17, 2025), Perma | democrats-foreignaffairs.house.gov. The Case-Zablocki Act further requires that the Secretary of State make publicly available the text of international agreements on the State Department website. 1 U.S.C. § 112b(b). Secretary Rubio has yet not made the full text of the Agreement so available or otherwise released it to the public. See U.S. Dep’t of State, 2025 Treaties and Agreements, Perma | 2025 Treaties and Agreements - United States Department of State (last visited June 4, 2025). To the same extent that the Agreement is contrary to the Case-Zablocki Act, it is likewise contrary to the State Department’s regulations implementing the Act. See 22 C.F.R. pt. 181.
The Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. chpt. 12, provides a comprehensive framework for the removal of non-citizens from the U.S., including dictating the procedures that must be followed in effectuating a removal, e.g., id. §§ 1229a, 1228, and the countries to which a non-citizen can be removed, id. § 1231(b). The Agreement is contrary to the INA, including because it provides for the rendition of non-citizens out of the country without observance of required procedures and to a destination country not authorized by the INA.
I’m betting the administration signed a non-binding instrument that was non-qualified because it doesn’t have a significant impact on US foreign policy. Using that instrument, the administration would be under no obligation to report it to congress.
In any case, reporting that kind of activity is very much an ongoing battle between congress and the WH. I don’t see a failure to notify congress as central to the lawsuit.
I still believe it will come down to parsing of rendition versus deportation. The language in the lawsuit intentionally avoided the use of deportation.