Supreme Court Ruling Clears Way for Destination-by-Drum Deportation Lottery
With removal orders no longer required to name a country, officials say a rotating drum will now handle the paperwork.
Following the ruling, the Department of Homeland Security unveiled what it called a 'streamlined geographic determination process': a converted bingo cage stocked with folded slips of paper, each bearing the name of a country willing, unwilling, or simply unaware that it had been entered into the drawing.
"We came together as one department, undecided," said a spokesperson, spinning the drum once for emphasis before excusing himself to laminate more slips. Officials stressed that the drum introduces no new uncertainty into the process, since the removal orders themselves were already silent on the matter.
The agency's new procedural manual reportedly instructs officers to treat the drum's selection as final unless the ping-pong ball-sized capsule containing the country name fails to open, in which case the draw is repeated until one does. A separate committee has been formed to determine whether repeated draws constitute a due process concern, and a further committee has been formed to schedule that committee's first meeting.
The Supreme Court is expected to hear full arguments on the underlying case at a later date, by which point officials say the drum will likely have been upgraded to a larger model to accommodate demand.