Supreme Court pauses district court order preventing deportation to third-party countries
By Amy Howe
on Jun 23, 2025
... In a brief unsigned order, the justices paused a ruling by a federal judge in Massachusetts that temporarily prohibited the government from sending immigrants to “third-party countries” without first taking a series of steps to ensure that the immigrants would not face torture there.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, in a lengthy opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “Apparently,” Sotomayor wrote, “the Court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in far-flung locales more palatable than the remote possibility that a District Court exceeded its remedial powers when it ordered the Government to provide notice and process to which the plaintiffs are constitutionally and statutorily entitled” ...
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy temporarily barred the government from deporting the plaintiffs and others in similar situations to third countries without first providing written notice to the immigrants and their lawyers, giving them at least 10 days and a “meaningful opportunity” to express their fear of removal, considering whether the immigrants have a “reasonable fear” of being tortured, and giving them at least 15 days to seek to reopen their immigration proceedings if the government determines that they do not meet all of these criteria.
After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit declined to put Murphy’s order on hold, the Trump administration came to the Supreme Court on May 27, asking the justices to intervene. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the court that Murphy’s “judicially created procedures are currently wreaking havoc on the third-country removal process,” and disrupting “sensitive diplomatic, foreign-policy, and national-security efforts” ...
https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/06/supreme-court-pauses-district-court-order-preventing-immigrants-from-being-deported-to-third-party-countries/
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