Supreme Court Backs Trump’s Third-Country Deportations, Clears South Sudan Flight

The U.S. Supreme Court on 23 June voted 6–3 to lift a district-court injunction that had required immigration officials to give migrants at least ten days’ notice and an opportunity to object before being removed to so-called “third countries.” The ruling, opposed by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, clears the Trump administration to resume deportations to nations where migrants have no ties, including conflict-scarred South Sudan.

In a follow-up order issued on 3 July, the justices—this time 7–2, with Sotomayor and Jackson again dissenting—said the earlier stay also nullifies a separate directive from U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy. That clarification allows the Department of Homeland Security to deport eight men, all convicted of violent or sexual offences and currently held at a U.S. military facility in Djibouti, to South Sudan as early as this week.

The administration argues that third-country removals are necessary when home governments refuse to accept returnees and says it has diplomatic assurances that South Sudan will not torture the men. Judge Murphy has found the policy likely violates due-process protections, and the underlying litigation continues in the First Circuit. For now, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has stripped away procedural hurdles, giving immigration authorities broader latitude to carry out deportations while the legal battle proceeds.