A federal court in Washington, D.C., has shut down a unique legal bid by an incarcerated man who sought to be deported to a country of his choosing rather than finish his sentence in a U.S. prison.
Carlos Brutus, currently held at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Englewood in Colorado, filed a lawsuit against Donald J. Trump and other officials, claiming that both citizens and non-citizens have a right to be transferred abroad if the Department of Justice and a third-party nation agree.
In a memorandum opinion released Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Loren L. Alikhan dismissed the case before it could even move toward a trial. The judge ruled that the court simply does not have the legal power to grant what Brutus is asking for.
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According to the court, the decision to start removal proceedings or transfer a prisoner to another country rests entirely with the Attorney General, not with the federal judiciary. Judge Alikhan noted that a court cannot force the government to deport someone before they have finished their court-ordered time behind bars.
Brutus had reportedly provided a list of eight different countries where he was willing to be sent through a “mutual agreement.” However, the court found that his claims didn’t meet the requirements for a legitimate legal case.
The opinion pointed out that even if Brutus were eligible for an international prisoner transfer under a specific treaty—something he did not actually prove in his filing—the courts still wouldn’t have the authority to overrule the Executive Branch’s decision on the matter.
Beyond the issue of who has the power to deport, the case faced a major geographic hurdle. Brutus filed his suit in the District of Columbia, but he is being held in a facility in Littleton, Colorado. Judge Alikhan explained that for any type of petition regarding a prisoner’s custody, the lawsuit must be filed in the jurisdiction where the prisoner is actually located so the court has authority over the warden.
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Since the warden of FCI Englewood is not in D.C., the court lacked the jurisdiction to hear the case anyway.
The judge chose to dismiss the action entirely rather than transfer it to a different court, concluding that no court would have the authority to grant Brutus’s specific request for hand-picked deportation.
The ruling effectively ends the inmate’s attempt to negotiate his exit from the American federal prison system through the judicial branch.
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