Supreme Court Greenlights Trump Admin Deportations To Third Countries
The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a significant victory to the Trump administration on Wednesday, granting its request to pause a lower court injunction that had blocked deportations of illegal migrants to third countries without advance notice. The 6–3 decision removes a key legal barrier as the administration accelerates its renewed, hardline immigration enforcement push.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, continuing their pattern of siding with activist legal groups seeking to halt President Trump’s immigration agenda.
The underlying case involves a group of migrants contesting deportations to nations other than their home countries—including South Sudan, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and several others the administration has considered in its broader deportation efforts.
Earlier this month, attorneys for the migrants urged the Supreme Court to uphold an order by U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, who had demanded that migrants remain in U.S. custody while awaiting further review. Murphy—presiding over a class-action lawsuit in Boston—insisted that migrants should receive a “reasonable fear interview” before removal so they could outline any fears of persecution or torture.
Murphy emphasized that his ruling did not prevent President Trump from “executing removal orders to third countries,” but required the government to “comply with the law” while doing so—a claim the administration rejected as judicial overreach intended to gum up enforcement.
In an appeal to the high court, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that Murphy’s ruling had obstructed the administration from deporting “some of the worst of the worst illegal aliens,” including a group that had previously been sent to South Sudan without due process under the Biden administration. Sauer reiterated that the migrants in question were being housed at a military base in Djibouti and would still receive “reasonable fear interviews,” but that Murphy’s injunction went far beyond what the law required.
Federal judges have repeatedly ruled that the Trump administration violated due process in past cases by not providing notice before removals. The Supreme Court has upheld those rulings four times—but always narrowly—highlighting the tension between judicial standards and the executive branch’s authority to swiftly remove illegal aliens.
The Biden-era legal holdovers and immigration activists continue to argue that even individuals who entered the U.S. unlawfully are entitled to broad due process protections. White House officials strongly reject that premise, pointing to decades of precedent affirming the president’s authority to deport individuals who have no legal right to remain in the country.
Reports indicate that as many as a dozen individuals from countries such as Vietnam and Myanmar were slated for deportation to South Sudan, an action their attorneys claimed was in “clear violation” of Murphy’s order.
Homeland Security officials, however, celebrated the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“Fire up the deportation planes,” tweeted Assistant Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin.
She added: “The SCOTUS ruling is a victory for the safety and security of the American people. The Biden Administration allowed millions of illegal aliens to flood our country, and, now, the Trump Administration can exercise its undisputed authority to remove these criminal illegal aliens and clean up this national security nightmare.”
Immigration activists responded with predictable outrage.
“The ramifications of the Supreme Court’s order will be horrifying; it strips away critical due process protections that have been protecting our class members from torture and death,” claimed Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance.
She vowed to push for a rapid conclusion to the case to restore those protections.
But the Supreme Court’s decision signals strong judicial support for President Trump’s authority to enforce immigration laws as written—without obstruction from the activist judiciary that hamstrung his first-term efforts.