In a major victory for President Donald Trump and a devastating setback for immigration and human rights advocates, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s emergency request to continue deporting immigrants to third countries without prior notice or due process, even when those countries are widely considered dangerous and unstable.
The ruling in Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D. pauses a lower court injunction that had blocked the administration from executing third-country removals unless noncitizens were given written notice and a fair opportunity to apply for protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, issued a blistering dissent.
“The Government’s misconduct threatens [the rule of law] to its core,” she wrote. “This Court now intervenes to grant the Government emergency relief from an order it has repeatedly defied.”
The Trump administration’s current deportation policy allows noncitizens to be removed to third countries — often those with which they have no meaningful connection — as long as the receiving government agrees to accept them. That includes countries like Libya and South Sudan, both of which the State Department warns are unsafe.
The case was brought by several plaintiffs, including a gay Guatemalan man identified as O.C.G., who fled persecution and was granted protection from removal to Guatemala. Nevertheless, he was deported — first to Mexico, then back to Guatemala — without notice or due process. Others were placed on a Department of Defense flight from Guantanamo Bay to El Salvador, in violation of a court-ordered restraining order.
According to court documents, DHS also gave six detainees just 16 hours’ notice before flying them to South Sudan. They were never given a chance to assert their fear of torture despite international treaty obligations.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio later confirmed that Libya’s government had rejected U.S. plans to send deportees there, and reports of the attempted removals sparked violent clashes in Tripoli.
“GNU-aligned forces took action against the two largest armed groups in the Libyan capital on May 12-13, sparking the most serious street fighting in Tripoli since 2022,” Rubio said in an affidavit.
Despite lower courts repeatedly blocking the policy and warning of grave harm to vulnerable migrants, the Supreme Court — now with a conservative majority largely appointed by Trump — allowed the administration to resume its removals while the appeals process plays out.
Sotomayor warned that the ruling “exposes thousands to the risk of torture or death.”
