Big Supreme Court Update As Trump Files Emergency Immigration Motion
The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to let it continue deporting migrants to countries other than their own while a legal challenge to the policy proceeds.
In an emergency application, the Justice Department asked the justices to block lower-court orders requiring the Department of Homeland Security to give migrants effective notice and a meaningful chance to explain why they fear persecution or torture in a proposed destination.
The application, Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D., was submitted to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who handles emergency matters from the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Jackson ordered the migrants challenging the policy to respond by 4 p.m. Monday, Sept. 28.
The dispute concerns third-country removals, which the administration uses when a migrant has a final deportation order but cannot readily be returned to their country of origin. That may happen if the home government refuses to accept the person or an immigration court has found that return could expose them to persecution or torture.
The administration has reached agreements with multiple countries to accept deportees. DHS General Counsel James Percival said this week that about 25,000 people had been removed to third countries, calling the policy an “essential public safety tool.” The administration says thousands more migrants with final removal orders could be eligible.
The central legal question is what process the government must provide before a third-country removal, rather than whether it has any authority to carry them out.
Under DHS guidance adopted in March 2025, officials could proceed without additional procedures if the State Department had received what the administration considered credible assurances that the destination country would not persecute or torture deportees. Where such assurances were absent, the policy generally provided at least 24 hours’ notice.
Migrants challenging the policy argued that the safeguards were insufficient, especially when they faced removal to a country never discussed in their original immigration proceedings.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Massachusetts ruled that the policy violated federal law because it did not guarantee effective notice and a meaningful opportunity to raise concerns about persecution or torture. On Sept. 18, the 1st Circuit largely upheld his decision.
Writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, Judge Seth Aframe said federal law requires migrants to have a meaningful opportunity to raise those concerns before removal. The court rejected the government’s interpretation, finding it could leave people without protections when sent to destinations they had not been told about in advance.
The appeals court did, however, overturn part of Murphy’s ruling. It found that migrants lacked standing to challenge requirements that DHS first try to send them to a country they had designated or to a country where they were citizens or nationals before considering other destinations. The court left in place the core notice and opportunity-to-object requirements.
The administration says those requirements impede its ability to carry out final deportation orders. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Supreme Court the lower-court ruling had already disrupted enforcement.
“The government has been able to remove thousands of aliens to third countries in recent months, and thousands more are eligible for such removal,” Sauer wrote in the emergency application.