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      "title": "The U.N. Convention Against Torture: Overview of U.S. Implementation Policy Concerning the Removal of Aliens",
      "summary": "The United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) requires signatory parties to take measures to end torture within their territorial jurisdictions. For purposes of the Convention, torture is defined as an extreme form of cruel and inhuman punishment committed under the color of law. The Convention allows for no circumstances or emergencies where torture could be permitted. Additionally, CAT Article 3 requires that no state party expel, return, or extradite a person to another country where there are substantial grounds to believe he would be subjected to torture. CAT Article 3 does not expressly prohibit persons from being removed to countries where they would face cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment not rising to the level of torture.\nThe United States ratified CAT subject to certain declarations, reservations, and understandings, including that the Convention was not self-executing, and therefore required domestic implementing legislation to take effect. In accordance with CAT Article 3, the United States enacted statutes and regulations to prohibit the transfer of aliens to countries where they would be tortured, including the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, and certain regulations implemented and enforced by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Department of State. These authorities, which require the withholding or deferral of the removal of an alien to a country where he is more likely than not to be tortured, generally provide aliens already residing within the United States a greater degree of protection than aliens arriving to the United States who are deemed inadmissible on security- or terrorism-related grounds. Further, in deciding whether or not to remove an alien to a particular country, these rules permit the consideration of diplomatic assurances that an alien will not be tortured there. Nevertheless, under U.S. law, the removal or extradition of all aliens from the United States must be consistent with U.S. obligations under CAT.\nCAT obligations concerning alien removal have additional implications in cases of criminal and other deportable aliens. The Supreme Court\u2019s ruling in Zadvydas v. Davis suggests that certain aliens receiving protection under CAT cannot be indefinitely detained, raising the possibility that certain otherwise-deportable aliens could be released into the United States if CAT protections make their removal impossible. CAT obligations also have implications for the practice of \u201cextraordinary renditions,\u201d by which the U.S. purportedly has transferred aliens suspected of terrorist activity to countries that possibly employ torture as a means of interrogation. For additional background on renditions and other CAT-related issues, see CRS Report RL32890, Renditions: Constraints Imposed by Laws on Torture, and CRS Report RL32438, U.N. Convention Against Torture (CAT): Overview and Application to Interrogation Techniques, both by Michael John Garcia.",
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