Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to Revive Fast Third-Country Deportations
Lower courts ruled migrants must get notice and a chance to object before being sent to countries where they have no ties. The government says that already grounded a flight of 70 deportees.
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to once again clear the way for quick deportations of immigrants to "third countries" where they have no ties, after lower courts ruled that deportees must first get a real chance to object.
In an emergency application, Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the justices to pause a February 2026 order from a federal judge in Boston, which an appeals court largely upheld last week. The courts found that before immigration officials send someone to a country other than their homeland, the person must receive notice and a meaningful opportunity to argue that the deportation would put them in danger of persecution or torture. The rulings do not ban third-country removals outright, but they lengthen the process.
"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. "These include some of the worst of the worst criminal aliens — whose home countries refuse to take them back." He said the order "would again obstruct DHS from efficiently removing aliens — this time under a policy that has been in force for 15 months," and argued that court interference in "a delicate diplomatic endeavor" would cause "significant and irreparable harm to U.S. foreign policy." Government lawyers said the Department of Homeland Security has already had to cancel a flight that was to carry 70 people, some with criminal records, to three different countries.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who handles emergency appeals from the region that includes Massachusetts, gave lawyers for the immigrants until Monday afternoon to respond. Sauer asked her for temporary relief while the court considers the application. The case has been to the high court before: last year a divided Supreme Court allowed third-country deportations to resume while the litigation continued.
The stakes are large. James Percival, DHS general counsel, said Wednesday on X that 25,000 people in the U.S. illegally have been deported to third countries, calling the practice "an essential public safety tool." He attached a video of Taylor Swift smiling and pointing to her wedding ring, captioned, "How my wife looks at me when I tell her we have deported 25,000 illegal aliens to third nations." Most third-country deportees have been sent to Mexico, but under a series of often-secret agreements the administration has sent thousands of others to more than two dozen countries, from Liberia and Guyana to Eswatini, South Sudan and Equatorial Guinea.
Some deportees have landed in countries they had never heard of. CBS News interviewed people from Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and Venezuela who were deported to Liberia last month and said they had no advance notice and no chance to challenge the move. This month, lawyers for two men deported to Equatorial Guinea said police beat them and held them at gunpoint in a hotel turned into a detention center, with bags over their heads. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the administration is working "to lawfully deliver on President Trump's mandate" to carry out "the largest mass deportation campaign of criminal illegal aliens in history."
