- Lower courts have required immigrants to be given a chance to challenge deportation to third countries
- Most deportees have been sent to Mexico, while thousands have also been relocated to more than two dozen other nations
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to allow expedited deportations of immigrants to countries where they have no established ties to continue.
The government sought an immediate pause on lower-court orders requiring migrants to have an opportunity to object before being sent to nations other than their own.
The justices previously permitted the deportation flights to resume when the case reached them last year. Since then, an appeals court has upheld a Boston-based judge’s ruling that migrants must have a meaningful opportunity to argue that a third-country deportation could expose them to persecution or torture.
The decision did not ban these deportations outright, but it has slowed the process. The government says the delays have already resulted in the cancellation of a flight carrying 70 people with criminal convictions to three different countries.
“The government has been able to remove thousands of aliens to third countries in recent months, and thousands more are eligible for such removal,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote.
Trump’s Republican administration has said it uses third-country deportations when it cannot quickly return people to their home countries. Attorneys said governments receiving the deportees have provided assurances that they will not face persecution or torture.
Lower-court legal requirements could create further delays and force the administration to revise agreements with foreign governments, attorneys argued.
James Percival, the Department of Homeland Security’s general counsel, said Wednesday on X that 25,000 undocumented immigrants in the United States had been deported to third countries, describing the practice as “an essential public safety tool.”
Most of the deportees have been sent to Mexico. Under a series of often-secret agreements, however, the administration has also deported thousands of people to more than two dozen countries, including Liberia and Guyana.
Some arrivals have said they were unfamiliar with the countries where they were taken. Others face serious safety concerns and may have little choice but to return to the nations they had fled.
This month, lawyers representing two men deported to Equatorial Guinea said the men were beaten and held at gunpoint in a hotel being used as a detention center by police who covered their heads with bags.
Percival’s post included a video of Taylor Swift smiling and pointing to her wedding ring as she celebrated a touchdown by her husband, football player Travis Kelce.
“How my wife looks at me when I tell her we have deported 25,000 illegal aliens to third nations,” Percival wrote.
The case arises as the Trump administration continues a broad immigration enforcement campaign aimed at deporting millions of people living in the United States without authorization.
