Supreme Court lets Trump administration resume third-country deportations of migrants

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday (September 29, 2026) to allow President Donald Trump’s administration to resume deporting migrants to third countries — that is, to countries other than their country of origin — without giving them a chance to testify about the harm they might face there.

The decision came after the justices granted the Justice Department’s emergency request to suspend the ruling of federal judge Brian Murphy in Boston, who had declared the policy unlawful. The Court also agreed to hear the final arguments in this case in December, as Reuters reports.

It is the third time the Supreme Court has backed the administration in this case. The three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — voted against.

According to the data, more than 25,000 migrants have been deported to 29 countries under this policy, most of them to Mexico, but also to South Sudan, Uganda, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia and the Central African Republic.

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer described the policy as “an essential tool” for deporting foreigners, including criminals, whose countries of origin refuse to take them back. According to him, court delays forced the cancellation of a flight carrying 70 criminals.

White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said: “Today’s Supreme Court decision once again affirms the legality of the President’s national security agenda.” Migrants’ lawyers, on the other hand, say the policy is being used against long-term U.S. residents, many of them with no criminal record, causing “serious and irreparable harm”. More than a dozen UN human rights experts have called for this practice to be stopped.