The Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a major win Tuesday, ruling 6-3 that his administration can resume deporting migrants to countries other than their own while the justices weigh whether the policy is legal, according to court documents released Tuesday morning.
The ruling stayed a lower-court order that had blocked the so-called "safe third country" deportations. The court also announced it will hear arguments in December on the legality of the policy, according to The New York Times. The high court asked both sides to argue whether lower courts had jurisdiction to issue nationwide relief and whether the policy violates due process or conventions against torture, NPR reported.
Fox News reported the decision as a direct victory for the administration:
"SCOTUS hands the Trump administration a significant win in its legal battle over third-country deportations. In a 6-3 decision, the justices put a lower-court ruling against the policy on hold, allowing the administration to continue the removals while the case moves forward."
What the Ruling Actually Does
The policy permits immigration officials to deport noncitizens to countries that are not their nation of origin when their home countries refuse to accept them. Solicitor General John Sauer told the justices earlier this month that the practice amounts to "an essential tool to remove certain aliens, including some of the worst criminal aliens," according to NPR.
The administration says it has used the policy to deport tens of thousands of noncitizens to Mexico and countries in Africa and Latin America. "While certain aliens may benefit from stalling their removal, the Nation does not," Sauer wrote in an emergency application dated September 24.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston had blocked the deportations, ruling they violate due process rights and fail to give detainees meaningful notice to raise fears of torture or abuse in destination countries. The Supreme Court has now rejected Murphy's efforts three times, according to NPR.
Justices on the liberal wing dissented, as reported by The Guardian.
A Legal Fight That Isn't Over
The National Immigration Litigation Alliance, representing migrants facing deportation, argued in court papers that clients removed without meaningful notice have faced "prolonged and arbitrary detention, beatings and sexual assault, disappearance, and chain refoulement to countries from which the United States had already granted them" protection, according to NPR.
The December arguments will determine whether the policy survives permanently. For now, enforcement can continue.
Our Take
Six justices just told the open-borders crowd what the rest of America already knows: the president has the authority to remove people who have no legal right to be here, and he doesn't need permission from a single Boston judge to do it.
Notice the pattern here. Judge Murphy tried three times to stop these deportations. The Supreme Court swatted him down three times. That's not a close legal question — that's an activist jurist trying to run immigration policy from the bench, and getting told to sit down.
Here's what the legacy media won't emphasize: this policy exists because home countries refuse to take their own people back. So the administration finds another country willing to accept them. That's not cruelty — that's the consequence of breaking our laws and then having nowhere to go. The detainees' lawyers can talk about "due process" all they want, but due process doesn't mean an endless carousel of appeals that keeps criminal aliens in American neighborhoods indefinitely.
Sauer said it plainly: the nation does not benefit from stalling removals. He's right. Every day this policy sits blocked is another day that dangerous people remain in this country at taxpayer expense while lawyers rack up billable hours.
December's arguments matter. The Left knows it. That's why they fought so hard to keep this frozen. But today, the border agenda moves forward — and Americans who voted for exactly this in 2024 should take note of who stood in the way.
Patriots, the question now: will the high court finish the job in December, or will four justices side with the judges who think they run the country?
