DHS General Counsel James Percival is now arguing the administration's third-country deportation case on X, with a "Daily Deportee" series spotlighting criminal deportees whose home countries won't take them back.
The backdrop: the Supreme Court stayed a lower-court judgment restricting DHS's third-country removal policy, so the guidance stays in effect. Arguments are set for December. Percival told Fox News Digital the posts are meant to shape public understanding of the issue and highlight its stakes.
His pitch to Fox News Digital was blunt. "Imagine going to a country and saying, hey, we've got a guy, he's not your guy, and he's a rapist, but can he please live there?" he said.
Norway is not taking a rapist from Cuba.
That's Percival's line, too. He called the ask one that "requires significant diplomatic energy."
He says the choice is binary. "If the person is a child rapist and serves 20 years, we have two choices: Find a third country — or let the child rapist go live in an American community," he said. He cited Burmese national Kyaw Mya, whose home country won't take him back. He also said he plans to feature a migrant who, Percival said, was not removed by the Bush administration after serving time and then allegedly reoffended. "[He] tried to kill somebody, the gun misfired, so he pistol-whipped them instead," Percival said.
On the law, Percival says the authority is already on the books. "It's in the statute expressly that we can do this," he said. Fox News notes the provision came in the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, signed by President Bill Clinton. His fine china theory: officials treat their authority like it might break if used.
Fox News reports the case does not squarely challenge DHS's underlying authority. It challenges the procedures DHS must follow beforehand. Per The Hill, the Court also added an unusual fourth question to the case: "Such other questions that the government determines are appropriate for the proper disposition of the case." The Hill's hosts said they could not recall seeing one like it.
Human rights advocates have pushed back. Fox News says they most recently pointed to allegations that deportees were beaten by authorities in Equatorial Guinea. Washington gave that government $7.5 million as part of an agreement to accept third-country deportations. Percival's reply: "I'd rather live in the United States than Equatorial Guinea too, but I'm an American citizen and I haven't killed anybody."
A separate Fox News report says Liberia will accept up to 1,200 third-country deportees from the U.S. over the next year. The first 20 are expected shortly, per Liberia's Information Minister Jerolinmek Piah.
The nation's top immigration lawyer is also running a content account. That's wild, and it's on the record.
His sign-off echoed Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin's standing offer to people in the country illegally: "It's not too late to get $3,000 and a flight home."