The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to resume deporting migrants to third countries, including high-risk nations such as South Sudan, without giving them advance notice or a meaningful chance to contest their removal.
The justices, in a 6-3 decision, lifted a lower court order that had required the government to provide migrants facing deportation to third countries an opportunity to argue they could face torture or persecution there. The three liberal justices—Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—dissented.
The ruling marks another legal victory for President Donald Trump, who has made aggressive immigration enforcement a cornerstone of his administration.
The case stemmed from a class-action lawsuit filed by immigrant rights groups after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) moved in February to expedite deportations to third countries. The plaintiffs argued that sending migrants to politically unstable nations without proper safeguards violated their due process rights.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston had blocked the policy in April, ruling that the government must allow migrants to challenge their removal if they feared persecution. On May 21, Murphy found that the administration violated his order by attempting to deport a group of migrants to South Sudan—a country the State Department warns against traveling to due to “crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict.”
The judge’s intervention forced U.S. officials to halt the deportations, keeping the migrants at a military base in Djibouti. One deportee, a man from Myanmar, was later sent back to his home country. Others on the flight included nationals from South Sudan, Cuba, Mexico, Laos, and Vietnam.
Reuters previously reported that U.S. officials had also considered deporting migrants to Libya, despite State Department criticisms of its human rights record. Murphy warned that any removals without due process would violate his order.
In a May 27 emergency filing, the administration told the Supreme Court that the migrants bound for South Sudan had committed “heinous crimes,” including murder and armed robbery, and that their home countries often refused to take them back.
The White House criticized Murphy as a “far-left activist judge,” continuing Trump’s pattern of attacking judges who rule against his policies.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly weighed in on Trump’s immigration agenda, including a May decision allowing him to end humanitarian protections for hundreds of thousands of migrants. However, in April, the justices ruled that the administration had failed to provide adequate due process in some deportation cases.
Under U.S. law, the government must generally give individuals notice and a hearing before taking adverse action. In March, the administration issued guidance stating that if a third country provides “credible diplomatic assurances” against torture, migrants could be deported there without additional procedures.
Murphy ruled that the policy likely violated constitutional due process protections, a decision the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to pause on May 16.
In his order, Murphy also clarified that non-citizens must be given at least 10 days to raise safety concerns before deportation.
The administration argued that its policy already complies with due process and is necessary to remove criminal migrants whose home countries refuse repatriation.
The case is one of several legal challenges to Trump’s immigration policies that have reached the Supreme Court since he took office.