The First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals handed the Trump administration a significant legal victory on Wednesday, granting its request to pause a lower court order that would have blocked the deportation of illegal immigrants to so-called "third countries."
The ruling came just one day before the lower court's order was set to take effect.
According to Fox News, the win keeps the administration's deportation operations running while the broader legal fight plays out, a fight that senior Trump administration officials have acknowledged is all but certain to land before the Supreme Court for a full review on the merits.
The order now on hold came from U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, a Biden appointee, who sided with migrants last month in an 81-page ruling. Murphy determined that the Department of Homeland Security's third-country removal process is unlawful and violates due process protections under the U.S. Constitution.
Under Murphy's ruling, the Trump administration would first have to attempt deportation to a migrant's home country or to a country of removal previously designated by an immigration judge. Only after exhausting those options could the government remove someone to a third country, and even then, only after providing "meaningful notice" and a "reasonable fear" interview.
Murphy wrote that the current process, in his view, falls far short:
"Fails to satisfy due process for a raft of reasons, not least of which is that nobody really knows anything about these purported 'assurances.'"
The judge stayed his own ruling for 15 days to give the administration time to appeal. The administration did exactly that, filing with the First Circuit last week. Trump administration lawyers called the lower court framework an "unworkable scheme" and warned that up to "thousands" of planned deportations risked being derailed.
The appeals court agreed to intervene.
It's worth pausing on who, exactly, is at the center of this class-action lawsuit. These are not people who overstayed a tourist visa. Trump officials have described them as the "worst of the worst." The administration has reportedly eyed countries like Costa Rica and Guatemala as third-country destinations for illegal immigrants whose home countries refuse to take them back.
Former Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin put it bluntly in June, after the Supreme Court temporarily permitted the administration to continue its deportation policy amid legal challenges:
"If these activist 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."
Even Judge Murphy acknowledged this reality in an order last year:
"The court recognizes that the class members at issue here have criminal histories. But that does not change due process. The court treats its obligation to these principles with the seriousness that anyone committed to the rule of law should understand."
There's a particular kind of judicial confidence that treats procedural abstraction as moral high ground while convicted murderers and child rapists remain on American soil. Murphy isn't wrong that due process exists. He's wrong about what it requires the government to tolerate in the meantime.
This isn't the first time Murphy has thrown sand in the gears. In May, the judge accused the administration of failing to comply with a court order regarding six migrants who were deported to South Sudan. Murphy ordered those migrants to remain in U.S. custody at a military base in Djibouti until each could be given a "reasonable fear interview."
Six people. A military base in Djibouti. Months of litigation. This is what the legal system now devotes its energy to: ensuring that illegal immigrants with criminal records who were rejected by their own countries receive a bespoke judicial process before the United States can send them anywhere at all.
The Supreme Court has already stepped in twice with emergency stays related to this policy. Two previous emergency interventions last year signaled that at least a majority of justices see something worth preserving in the administration's approach. The full merits review, when it comes, will be the definitive word.
The appeals court pause buys the administration operational breathing room, but the legal trajectory points upward. This case is heading to the Supreme Court. Everyone involved knows it.
The core question isn't complicated, even if the litigation is. Can the federal government deport criminal illegal immigrants to a willing third country when their home country refuses to take them back? Or must the government simply release them into American communities because a federal judge believes the paperwork isn't sufficiently detailed?
For months, a single district judge has functioned as a one-man immigration policy shop, dictating where deportees can go, what interviews they must receive, and what custody arrangements the military must maintain in East Africa. The First Circuit just reminded him that appellate courts exist for a reason.
The administration isn't asking for anything radical. It's asking to remove convicted criminals from the country. The fact that this requires intervention from three levels of federal courts tells you everything about where the immigration debate actually stands.