President Donald Trump’s administration has turned once again to the U.S. Supreme Court—this time in a high-stakes bid to accelerate deportations of migrants to third countries, even where those migrants haven’t set foot or have no ties.
At the center of the legal standoff is a nationwide injunction issued by a federal judge in Boston that temporarily blocks the administration from carrying out these deportations without first allowing migrants the opportunity to raise claims of persecution, torture, or death if sent elsewhere. The administration is asking the nation’s top court to scrap that injunction while the broader case plays out.
The Trump team argues this process—sending migrants to countries other than their own—is a crucial tool for dealing with individuals whose native countries won’t take them back, particularly those with criminal records. According to the Justice Department, this legal block is interfering with national security and foreign diplomacy, as well as clogging the pipeline of pending deportations.
In court papers, the administration said it is left with “an intolerable choice”—either continue detaining these migrants in foreign military facilities, risking diplomatic backlash, or return them to the U.S., despite their criminal pasts.
The Department of Homeland Security has been developing a protocol: if a third country offers diplomatic assurances that it won’t harm deported individuals, the U.S. can send them there without further review. But if no such promise is secured and a migrant voices fear, the case could end up in immigration court.
Judge Brian Murphy, who issued the injunction in April, was clear: fast-tracking these deportations without notice or a chance to plead a case violates due process protections enshrined in the Fifth Amendment. In his ruling, Murphy said even basic decency demands these individuals be given a fair chance to speak.
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently declined to halt Murphy’s order, adding fuel to the ongoing legal fire. Murphy has since modified the injunction to prevent the administration from side-stepping it by transferring deportation duties to the military or other agencies not directly named in the original order.
Evidence of this maneuvering surfaced after the Pentagon reportedly flew four Venezuelan migrants from Guantanamo Bay to El Salvador—an act Murphy ruled was a clear violation of his order. He further warned that any similar removal, such as a rumored deportation to Libya, would defy the court’s ruling outright.
Civil rights advocates backing the migrants said the government is skirting the law under the guise of urgency. “This is not an emergency,” said Trina Realmuto of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance. “This is about due process, plain and simple.”
As the Supreme Court weighs the administration’s request, the fate of migrants caught in this legal and geopolitical tug-of-war hangs in limbo—many still confined abroad, with no clear destination in sight.
