Supreme Court Lets Trump Resume Third-Country Deportations

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday let the Trump administration resume third-country deportations, clearing the way for immigration officials to send migrants to countries other than their own with limited notice.

In an unsigned order, the court granted an emergency request from the Justice Department and put on hold a ruling by Boston-based U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, who had found the Department of Homeland Security’s third-country removal policy unlawful. The decision drew dissents from the court’s three liberal justices and applies while the justices consider the government’s appeal.

The court also agreed to hear full arguments in the dispute in December, with a final ruling on whether the policy is legal expected to follow.

What the Supreme Court’s deportations order means

The order is temporary, but it carries immediate practical weight: deportation flights that had been frozen can now proceed. Federal attorneys told the court that the lower-court ruling had already forced the cancellation of a deportation flight carrying about 70 people bound for three countries, according to The Week.

The court’s six-justice conservative majority offered no explanation for granting the stay, but the order signals the administration may have the upper hand heading into the full appeal. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson indicated they would have denied the government’s request, though they did not attach a written dissenting opinion to the order, Bloomberg reported.

The justices laid out several questions for both sides to address in their briefs ahead of the December arguments, including whether the lower court had jurisdiction over the case, whether it had authority to enter a sweeping nationwide block, and whether the government’s policy violates U.S. immigration law or constitutional due-process protections.

What are third-country deportations?

Third-country removals — deporting a migrant to a country that is not their homeland — were once rare in U.S. immigration enforcement. Under the Trump administration’s policy, any person with a final removal order can be sent to a country not listed in the original order, provided that country’s government agrees to accept them.

The administration says it turns to third countries when migrants cannot be returned to their homelands — because their native countries refuse to issue travel documents or the United States has no diplomatic relations with them — or when it wants to remove people with criminal convictions quickly. Officials say receiving governments provide assurances that deportees will not face persecution or torture.

Human rights groups dispute that the safeguards work in practice. More than 25,000 migrants have been deported to 29 countries under the policy implemented last year, according to a tally by human rights groups cited by Reuters, with the vast majority sent to Mexico. Others have been flown to countries including South Sudan, Uganda, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia and the Central African Republic. Critics say some migrants have found themselves imprisoned in countries they had never heard of before arriving, while others face serious safety risks with little choice but to return to the home countries they were fleeing.

The legal battle behind the ruling

The case began as a class-action lawsuit filed by immigrant rights groups seeking to stop the government from sending migrants to third countries without notice and without a chance to assert the harms they could face. Judge Murphy ruled that the policy was unlawful and required the government to give migrants meaningful notice and an opportunity to raise fears of persecution or torture before removal.

The Justice Department countered that the requirement made it impossible to “effectively remove aliens” from the United States and asked the Supreme Court to intervene on an emergency basis. Notably, the justices had previously allowed the deportation flights to continue temporarily when the case came before them last year, The Week reported.

Under the policy’s procedures as described by officials, when no diplomatic assurance exists, the government says a migrant is informed of the destination and given an opportunity to express fear of persecution or torture, with DHS generally waiting at least 24 hours after issuing the notice. An immigration officer then determines whether the person is more likely than not to face such harm — a process critics say falls far short of the protections federal law requires.

Why the ruling matters for Trump’s immigration agenda

The decision bolsters one of the central tools of Trump’s immigration crackdown, which has been among his top priorities since returning to office last year. The administration has described third-country removals as “an essential tool to remove certain aliens, including some of the worst criminal aliens,” in pursuit of the president’s goal of mass deportation.

Immigrant advocates condemned the order, warning that it exposes thousands of people to danger in countries where they have no ties, no family and no legal protections. International bodies and human rights organizations have broadly criticized the practice, arguing that outsourcing deportations to countries with poor human rights records puts lives at risk.

Supporters of the policy argue that without it, migrants whose home countries refuse to take them back would remain in the United States indefinitely despite final removal orders — a result they say undermines the integrity of the immigration system.

What happens next

Deportations to third countries can now resume while the case moves forward. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in December and issue a final decision on the policy’s legality afterward — a ruling that could either cement the practice for years to come or shut it down entirely. Until then, the emergency stay keeps the administration’s removal machinery running at full speed, and immigration lawyers say they expect a fresh wave of third-country flights in the coming weeks.