A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the Trump administration can continue deporting migrants to third countries — nations where they may not have prior ties — while a legal challenge to the policy proceeds. The decision came in a 2-1 vote by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. The panel did not provide a written explanation for its ruling but moved to expedite the next phase of the case.
As part of its broader immigration enforcement strategy, the administration has expanded the use of “third country removals,” reaching agreements with countries including Cameroon, South Sudan and Eswatini to accept deportees.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has defended the policy, saying it is intended to remove individuals it describes as posing serious public safety concerns. In court filings, administration attorneys have also argued that federal judges lack the authority to block the policy, The Hill reported.
The majority on the appellate panel included Judge Jeffrey Howard, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, and Judge Seth Aframe, appointed by former President Joe Biden. Judge Lara Montecalvo, also a Biden appointee, dissented.
The ruling lifts restrictions that had been imposed on the policy by U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, a Biden appointee who is overseeing a class-action lawsuit filed last year by four noncitizens.
“While the order unfortunately delays implementation of the decision, we appreciate that the First Circuit ordered a swift resolution of the merits of the government’s appeal,” said Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, which represents the migrants.
Last year, the Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States and prevailed after Murphy had earlier limited the use of third-country removals. In a subsequent ruling issued last month, Murphy claimed new developments in the case had emerged and again moved to block the policy.
“It is not fine, nor is it legal,” Murphy wrongly claimed.
Murphy had ruled that the administration must first attempt to deport migrants to their country of citizenship or a previously designated destination. If those efforts fail, he said individuals must be given a “meaningful opportunity” to challenge removal before being sent to a third country.
Murphy had paused enforcement of his order to allow the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit to review the case. The appeals court’s latest decision keeps his order on hold while the legal challenge continues.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the ruling shows the department’s position has “once again been vindicated.”
“The Biden Administration allowed millions of illegal aliens to flood our country, and the Trump Administration has the authority to remove these criminal illegal aliens and clean up this national security nightmare,” the spokesperson said. “If these activists judges had their way, aliens who are so uniquely barbaric that their own countries won’t take them back, including convicted murderers, child rapists and drug traffickers, would walk free on American streets.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed President Trump’s administration to remove the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian, and Nicaraguan migrants living in the United States, supporting the Republican president’s push to increase deportations.
The court stayed the order from U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston that halted the administration’s move to end the immigration “parole” granted to 532,000 of these migrants by former President Joe Biden, potentially exposing many of them to immediate removal while the case is heard in lower courts.
The ruling was unsigned and did not justify, as is common with emergency court orders. Two of the court’s three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, officially dissented.