Trump Administration Seeks Supreme Court Intervention on Deportation Policy

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to permit deportations of noncitizens to countries not named in their initial removal orders. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer submitted the request on Thursday, the third time the administration has brought this issue before the high court.

Sauer asked the justices to allow the government to proceed with these removals, often referred to as "third-country removals." He stated that a recent order by U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, which barred these removals, relied on what Sauer termed "fundamentally flawed legal premises." Sauer also requested an "immediate administrative stay" to enable deportations to continue while the court considers the request.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, responsible for emergency appeals from the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals where the case originated, directed the immigrants involved to respond to the government's request by 4 p.m. EDT on Monday, September 28.

The dispute began last year, following a Jan. 20 executive order from President Donald Trump. This order instructed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to remove noncitizens who were in the United States despite existing deportation orders.

In February, DHS issued internal guidance. This guidance instructed a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement division to assess whether undocumented immigrants, who had received deportation orders but remained in the U.S. due to potential torture in their home countries, could instead be sent to a different country. Further guidance in March outlined procedures for these removals. It stipulated that before deporting immigrants to a country not specified in their removal orders, DHS must notify the immigrants, offer them an opportunity to express fear of torture, and, if necessary, screen for the likelihood of torture.

In March, four immigrants with removal orders filed a lawsuit in federal court in Massachusetts. They stated fears of being removed to countries not identified in their orders.

Judge Murphy then issued an order. His order prevented the government from deporting the immigrants to third countries without providing them and their lawyers written notice of the destination and a "meaningful opportunity" to challenge the removal. Murphy also instructed DHS to determine if immigrants' fears of torture were "reasonable," rather than requiring proof that torture was "more likely than not." If immigrants could not demonstrate this, Murphy added, DHS must provide at least 15 days to reopen their immigration proceedings.

Sauer first appealed to the Supreme Court, seeking to pause Murphy's order. On June 23, the court granted this request, with Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting.

Sauer returned to the court a day later, seeking clarification. He asked the justices to confirm that their first order allowed the deportation of eight men held at a U.S. military base in Djibouti. Murphy had previously ruled that efforts to send these men to South Sudan violated his initial order.

On July 3, the court issued an opinion. It stated that its June 23 order had paused Murphy's order "in full," and that this pause also applied to his subsequent order concerning the South Sudan deportations. Justice Kagan wrote a concurring opinion, noting that while she disagreed with the decision to pause Murphy's order, she did "not see how a district court can compel compliance with an order that this Court has stayed." Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Jackson, again dissented.

When the case returned to the lower courts, Murphy issued a final judgment favoring the immigrants and nullified the third-country removal policy. He ruled that before immigrants can be removed to a third country, they have a right to "meaningful notice" and a "meaningful opportunity" to contest such a removal based on a reasonable fear of persecution or torture.

On Friday, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld Murphy's ruling. On Wednesday, the appellate court dissolved its March 16, 2026, order that had temporarily halted Murphy's ruling during the government's appeal.

The Trump administration subsequently made its third request to the Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon. Sauer stated that the reinstatement of Murphy's order had "created substantial logistical problems with ongoing removal operations—including the cancellation of flights—and led to added expense, potential diplomatic issues, and the inability to remove dangerous criminals."

Sauer argued that Murphy and the appellate court had "simply relied on the same meritless grounds" as the earlier order favoring the immigrants. He stated that the courts "again disregarded multiple jurisdictional bars that preclude" courts from reviewing an immigrant's claims of persecution or torture, except in a petition for review from a removal order. He also contended that the courts "again rejected the government’s reliance on countrywide assurances that particular nations will not torture or persecute anyone."

Sauer added that delaying the third-country deportation process means "the government will often need to restart the entire removal process afresh, freezing things as the government attempts to rework arrangements with foreign countries."