The most probative evidence about a government is what it says about itself. This section collects statements by the United States, in its policy documents, in public and in court, as courts have recorded them.
In public
A federal court took judicial notice of statements by government officials, on social media and to the press, acknowledging that people removed to third countries are being imprisoned and expressing an intention to continue. It found that those statements “do offer evidence that third country deportation is occurring as a punishment,” and quoted an official video in which the President said that people who remain unlawfully “face punishments, including significant jail time, enormous financial penalties, confiscation of all property, garnishment of all wages, imprisonment and incarceration, and sudden deportation in a place and manner solely of our discretion.” It also quoted a statement that people would be held at Guantanamo Bay because “it’s a tough place to get out” and “we don’t want them coming back.”
In its own policy
The memorandum of 9 July 2025 provides that where diplomatic assurances are received and the Department of State believes them credible, a person “may be removed without the need for further procedures.” Where they are not received, officers “will not affirmatively ask whether the [noncitizen] is afraid of being removed to the country of removal.”
In court, when asked
In a footnote in one case the government stated that under the current policy it is “no longer fully following” the process a federal court had required in 2019, and offered no explanation for the change.
In another, it agreed that a receiving state appeared to be violating the assurance it had given the United States, agreed that the practice “is not okay,” and said it could not prevent the consequence, because the United States “does not have the power to tell Ghana what to do.”
In court, when not asked
In five of the cases in the register the government did not answer the punitive claim on its merits at all, arguing only that the question was foreclosed by other litigation. One court recorded that this left it “with no argument from respondents to consider on this topic.” Another treated the silence as an admission, noting that under Rule 8(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure an allegation that is not denied is admitted.
A note for officials
Much of what this project describes is carried out by officers applying a written policy they did not draft. The Coalition assumes, as it does throughout this site, that people who enter public service do so intending to apply the law, and that a policy issued from above is not easy to question from below. The purpose of setting the record out this plainly is so that anyone administering these removals can see what courts have said about the policy they are working under, and can see it in the decisions themselves rather than in anyone’s characterisation of them. Every one of them is linked.
Sources for this page
Nguyen v. Scott, 796 F. Supp. 3d 703, 733–34 (W.D. Wash. 2025), as quoted in Abubaka, Hambarsonpour and Baltodano; the ICE memorandum of 9 July 2025 as set out in Elshourbagy v. Bondi, 817 F. Supp. 3d 1102, 1114–15 (W.D. Wash. 2025); Abubaka v. Bondi, No. 2:25-cv-01889-RSL (W.D. Wash. 17 November 2025); D.A. v. Noem, No. 1:25-cv-03135-TSC (D.D.C. 15 September 2025); Pham v. Warden, 833 F. Supp. 3d 1092 (E.D. Cal. 2026). All in the register of court decisions.