President Donald Trump's administration asked the US Supreme Court on Tuesday to intervene in its effort to rapidly deport migrants to countries other than their own without the opportunity to raise claims that they fear being persecuted, tortured or killed there.
The Justice Department requested that the justices lift Boston-based US District Judge Brian Murphy's nationwide injunction requiring that migrants be given the chance to seek legal relief from deportation before they are sent to so-called "third countries," while litigation continues in the case.
The administration's filing represents its latest trip to the nation's highest judicial body as it seeks a freer hand to pursue Trump's crackdown on immigration and contest lower court decisions that have impeded the Republican president's policies.
The administration said Murphy's injunction is preventing potentially thousands of pending deportations.