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

The US Supreme Court on 23 June 2025 stayed, by a 6–3 vote, a federal injunction that had forced the Trump administration to give migrants 10 days’ notice and an opportunity to object before being deported to so-called third countries—nations with which they have no prior connection. The order lifted District Judge Brian Murphy’s April ruling and allowed immigration officials to resume fast-track removals without additional due-process steps.

In a further unsigned order on 3 July, the justices clarified—this time 7–2—that their June stay also nullifies Murphy’s separate May remedial ruling covering a group of eight convicted criminals whose flight was bound for South Sudan. The clarification frees the administration to transfer the men, held for about six weeks in a converted shipping container on a US military base in Djibouti, to the war-torn African nation after receiving diplomatic assurances on their treatment.

Homeland Security officials said the decisions help remove offenders whose home countries refuse to take them back, while liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson argued the policy risks exposing migrants to torture or death. The broader lawsuit challenging whether third-country deportations violate US constitutional due-process guarantees will continue in lower courts, but the Supreme Court’s orders allow the removals to proceed in the meantime.