Supreme Court Hands Down Major Ruling
The Supreme Court delivered a decisive win for the Trump administration this week, granting President Donald J. Trump’s team the authority to move forward with the deportation of eight foreign nationals currently held at a U.S. military installation in Djibouti. The group, originally slated for removal to South Sudan, had been shielded by a lower-court ruling that dramatically restricted the government’s long-established ability to carry out deportations to third countries.
In a succinct but consequential order, the Court affirmed that its earlier stay—blocking a Massachusetts judge’s attempt to micromanage federal removal policy—applies fully to the detainees now held overseas. That stay effectively nullifies the lower court’s attempt to impose sweeping new limitations on where the U.S. may deport individuals whose removal orders do not specify a particular destination.
The case emerged after U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy sought to bar the federal government from sending migrants to any “third countries” unless bureaucratic safeguards were met to guarantee the individuals would not face torture abroad. Murphy accused the administration of violating his directive by preparing to remove eight individuals to South Sudan, a nation the State Department warns Americans to avoid due to “crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict.”
The aircraft carrying the migrants ultimately diverted to Djibouti, where the men have since been held at a U.S. military facility as the legal fight played out.
President Trump’s administration appealed Murphy’s sweeping restrictions, urging the justices to restore the government’s authority to conduct third-country removals while litigation continues. Solicitor General D. John Sauer emphasized the national-security implications, arguing that Murphy’s “judicially created procedures are currently wreaking havoc on the third-country removal process” and actively “disrupt[ing] sensitive diplomatic, foreign policy, and national-security efforts.”
Attorneys for the migrants countered that Murphy’s order “simply requires” the Trump administration “to follow the law.” Murphy himself insisted his ruling remained active even after the Supreme Court’s initial stay—prompting the administration to return to the Court, requesting explicit clarification to halt what Sauer called the judge’s “unprecedented defiance” of the high court’s authority.
The Court’s unsigned majority order was unambiguous: “Order stayed the preliminary injunction in full.”
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, while Justice Elena Kagan sided with the Court’s conservative bloc despite disagreeing with its earlier action. “But most of this court saw things differently, and I don’t see how a district court can force compliance with an order that this court has stayed,” Kagan wrote.
Sotomayor, however, issued a dire characterization of the administration’s actions. “What 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 further criticized the Court’s handling of the dispute, arguing that the government had not justified bypassing the lower courts and that the Supreme Court’s “continued refusal to justify its extraordinary decisions in this case, even as it faults lower courts for failing to properly divine their import, is indefensible.”
According to various reports, the detainees come from Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos—countries whose nationals often exploit loopholes in U.S. immigration policy to avoid long-term detention or removal.
For the Trump administration, the ruling marks a significant reaffirmation of the executive branch’s constitutional authority over immigration enforcement—a core issue President Trump has centered throughout his second term.