In a sharp rebuke to an aggressive Trump-era deportation push, a federal appeals court has refused to greenlight a fast-track strategy that aimed to remove migrants to countries they’ve never called home—places like Libya and El Salvador—without first listening to their fears of torture or death.
At the heart of the dispute is an April injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, who ruled that deporting migrants to third-party nations—ones not part of their original immigration proceedings—without due process defied the Constitution. The Trump team had asked the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to put that ruling on ice. The court declined.
The administration argued the injunction was jamming up thousands of deportation orders and undercutting diplomatic efforts to ship migrants off to cooperating countries. But the appeals panel pushed back, voicing “concerns” over Homeland Security’s new guidance and warning of “irreparable harm” if people are wrongly deported to unfamiliar and potentially dangerous countries.
The case stems from a legal challenge brought by immigrant rights advocates who say migrants have the right to explain why being sent to an unfamiliar country might place them in mortal danger. Trina Realmuto, with the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, praised the court’s move, calling it a necessary bulwark against secretive and hasty deportations. “These protections are especially important,” she said, “given that the government was actively trying to deport people to Libya just last week.”
Homeland Security and the Justice Department have kept silent.
Earlier this year, the Biden-era DHS instructed officers to comb through cases where migrants were previously shielded from deportation to their homelands—looking for openings to ship them elsewhere. That review came under fire after it was revealed that four Venezuelans held in Guantanamo Bay were quietly flown to El Salvador by the Defense Department—despite the court’s prior warnings.
Judge Murphy wasn’t pleased. He updated his order to block any agency handoffs meant to bypass his injunction, warning that offloading migrants to the military or other departments won’t dodge constitutional obligations.
When it emerged that the Pentagon was eyeing deportations to Libya, Murphy responded bluntly: such removals would “clearly violate” his ruling.
The legal battle now stands as a pointed reminder—deportation may be policy, but due process is still the law.
