Supreme Court Gives Trump Admin Major Immigration Win
The Supreme Court has cleared the way for President Donald J. Trump’s administration to move forward with the deportation of a group of illegal immigrants currently being held at a U.S. military facility in Djibouti, sending them to South Sudan as originally ordered.
In a concise decision, the justices confirmed that their previous stay on a Massachusetts federal court ruling also applies to the eight individuals detained overseas. The high court reiterated that lower courts may not impose additional conditions on deportations beyond what immigration law already requires.
The ruling arrives less than two weeks after U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy attempted to block deportations to countries not specifically listed in removal orders without additional procedural guarantees. His May 21 decision alleged that the government had violated an earlier directive when it began deportation proceedings that would have sent the men to South Sudan—where the State Department currently warns of “crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict.”
The illegal immigrants were instead flown to Djibouti, where they have remained at a U.S. military installation pending the legal dispute.
The Trump administration appealed swiftly, arguing that Murphy’s order intruded on executive authority over immigration and foreign policy. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote that the judge’s mandates “are currently wreaking havoc on the third-country removal process” and “disrupt[ing] sensitive diplomatic, foreign policy, and national-security efforts.”
Attorneys representing the immigrants responded that the administration could still carry out the deportations, but insisted Murphy’s order “simply requires” compliance with statutory safeguards.
After the Supreme Court initially sided with the administration and stayed Murphy’s injunction, the district judge claimed his May 21 enforcement order was still active. That prompted the administration to return to the high court for clarification, citing what Sauer described as Murphy’s “unprecedented defiance” of the Supreme Court’s authority.
In a 7–2 unsigned opinion, the majority stated clearly that its June order had already blocked the injunction entirely: “The May 21 remedial order cannot now be used to enforce an injunction that our stay rendered unenforceable.”
Left-wing Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, while Justice Elena Kagan broke with the liberal bloc and joined the court’s conservative majority. She acknowledged her disagreement with the original decision but emphasized that the district court could not override the Supreme Court: “I do not see how a district court can compel compliance with an order that this court has stayed,” Kagan wrote.
Sotomayor, in her dissent, made an emotional appeal, claiming that “[w]hat the Government wants to do, concretely, is send the eight noncitizens it illegally removed from the United States from Djibouti to South Sudan, where they will be turned over to the local authorities without regard for the likelihood that they will face torture or death.” She also complained that the government should have made further arguments in lower courts rather than asking the Supreme Court to intervene again.
The group of deportees includes individuals from Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos.
The ruling represents a significant reinforcement of presidential authority over immigration enforcement—reaffirming that federal courts cannot rewrite deportation policy from the bench, especially when national security and foreign relations are involved.