A federal appeals court stepped in Wednesday to block a lower court order that would have gutted the Trump administration’s program to deport criminal illegal immigrants to third countries, granting the administration a last-minute reprieve just hours before the ruling was set to take effect.
The First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals granted the administration’s emergency request to pause the order from U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, a Biden appointee, who had ruled that DHS’s third-country removal process was unconstitutional and violated due process protections. Murphy’s ruling had given the administration 15 days to appeal. Without the First Circuit’s intervention, his order would have taken force on Thursday.
The original ruling required DHS to first attempt to deport migrants to their country of origin before sending them to a third country. It also required that migrants receive “meaningful notice” and an opportunity to claim fear of persecution before any third-country removal, through what the court called a “reasonable fear interview.”
Trump administration lawyers had argued Murphy’s ruling created an “unworkable scheme” that threatened to derail sensitive negotiations with foreign countries and could halt “thousands” of planned deportations. They also said Murphy’s order conflicted with two prior Supreme Court emergency stays that had already allowed the deportation program to continue.
The case involves migrants facing deportation to South Sudan, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Costa Rica. Murphy has been overseeing the class-action lawsuit for months and has repeatedly clashed with the Trump administration. In May, he accused the administration of failing to comply with a court order that required six migrants deported to South Sudan to be returned to U.S. custody, saying they had been removed without proper process.
Murphy acknowledged in that earlier ruling that the migrants at issue had criminal histories. “The court recognizes that the class members at issue here have criminal histories,” he wrote. “But that does not change due process.”
The case is expected to reach the Supreme Court for a full review on the merits. Senior administration officials have said as much publicly.
The high court has already intervened twice to allow the program to continue while litigation proceeds. Wednesday’s First Circuit order adds another chapter to a legal battle that has been grinding through courts since early in Trump’s second term.
