Composite story
Appeals court rejects Trump third-country deportation policy
Boston, MassachusettsPublished 22 Sep 2026
On Sept. 18, 2026, the First Circuit largely upheld a ruling that the Department of Homeland Security cannot rapidly deport people to a third country without notice and a chance to raise fear of persecution or torture. DHS says the ruling is not yet in effect.
Placeholder: a short composite summary of how these sources overlap will be written here.
Disputed opinions
None yet.
US court blocks Trump plan to deport migrants to third countries
Published 19 Sep 2026 accessed 21 Sep 2026
Facts
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately comment.
The State Department advises against visiting South Sudan because of crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict.
The Department of Homeland Security called the removals a win.
A federal judge blocked planned caps on student and journalist visas.
Twenty-two states and Washington, D.C., sued to stop a rule that would let officials deny green cards to immigrants who lawfully use public benefits.
Opinion
Al Jazeera said the ruling could go to the Supreme Court next.
Rights groups said the removals flouted basic protections.
Al Jazeera said the Trump administration’s immigration agenda has faced a string of setbacks this month.
The judge called the government’s justification for the visa caps exceptionally weak.
Appeals court rejects Trump's third-country deportation policy
Published 18 Sep 2026 accessed 21 Sep 2026
Facts
The policy has in some cases sent deportees from Latin America to sub-Saharan Africa.
Trina Realmuto said many class members have been deported to countries they were never told they could be sent to, with little or no notice and no meaningful chance to explain the danger.
Some deportees are sent to a third country because a court order blocks return to their country of origin but does not bar deportation altogether.
CBS reported that deportees from South and Central America and from other parts of Africa were flown to Liberia last month.
Migrants living in a hotel said they were not notified by the United States.
Elvis Rodriguez Venturas, who is Honduran, told CBS he is concerned.
Opinion
CBS called the First Circuit ruling a setback for the administration’s third-country deportation policy.
CBS said Friday’s ruling will almost certainly be appealed to the Supreme Court.
CBS called the ruling a significant legal defeat for an intensifying part of President Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Court rules against US policy on deportations to third countries
Published 20 Sep 2026 accessed 21 Sep 2026
Facts
The administration has carried out third-country deportations to Uganda, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, and the Central African Republic.
Those people had won immigration-court protection against being sent back to their countries of origin.
The Trump administration said Murphy’s order would take away its authority to carry out potentially thousands of third-country deportation orders.
Judge Brian Murphy was appointed by former President Joe Biden.
Opinion
Judge Seth Aframe called Judge Brian Murphy’s reading of the immigration law sensible.
U.S. Court Stops Rapid Third-Country Deportations Across the Country
Published 20 Sep 2026 accessed 21 Sep 2026
Facts
Judge Seth Aframe wrote the 55-page opinion, joined by Judges Lara Montecalvo and Jeffrey Howard.
The First Circuit’s territory is Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Puerto Rico.
The opinion cites a Guatemalan plaintiff deported to Mexico and then sent on to Guatemala, the outcome his removal order was meant to prevent.
In June 2025 the Supreme Court voted 6–3, in an unsigned order, to lift Judge Murphy’s original injunction and let deportations resume without explaining why.
DHS had not formally confirmed, as of Latin Times’s writing, that it will seek Supreme Court review.
Justice Elena Kagan dissented from the first order but joined the second, writing that a district court could not compel compliance with an order the justices had already paused.
Opinion
Latin Times said migrants deserve notice and a real chance to object before removal to a country where they have no ties.
Latin Times called shipping people with final deportation orders to countries they have never lived in, sometimes with only hours of warning, one of the administration’s most aggressive removal tactics.
Latin Times said the ruling could set up a third Supreme Court showdown over the deportation strategy.
Latin Times said the ruling was not a clean sweep for the challengers.
Latin Times concluded that the injunction therefore reaches every state where third-country flights operate, not only New England.
Latin Times said the gap is agreements still starting up, not a factual dispute between outlets.
Latin Times said the department wasted no time signaling it would not back down.
Latin Times said Percival’s statement points toward an appeal.
Latin Times said a third Supreme Court round, this time on the legal merits rather than an emergency stay, now looks likely.
Latin Times said whether that argument survives will likely depend on a Supreme Court merits ruling, after the court already granted the administration emergency relief.
Appeals Court Smacks Down Trump’s Third-Country Removal Policy
Published 19 Sep 2026 accessed 21 Sep 2026
Facts
Anwen Hughes of Human Rights First said people removed under the policy were left without documents in countries where they have never lived, faced arbitrary detention and physical abuse, and were sent on to countries the United States had protected them from.
Without diplomatic assurances, the administration said it needed to give only six hours’ notice, and that only the immigrant, not a lawyer, could raise a fear of removal to that country.
Massachusetts District Judge Brian Murphy issued a temporary restraining order in March 2025 barring removals under the policy.
In an emergency hearing, Murphy ordered the administration not to let the immigrants out of U.S. custody.
The seven immigrants were expelled to South Sudan on the Fourth of July and imprisoned in a government compound.
D.V.D. are the initials of the lead plaintiff.
The American Prospect said deportees have been imprisoned in Eswatini and Equatorial Guinea and sent to Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reported that more than 80 percent of third-country nationals were later sent on.
Dana Camilleri said nearly everyone removed while the lower-court decision was stayed is in dire straits or has been sent on to another country.
The American Prospect said chain refoulement is prohibited under domestic and international law.
Trina Realmuto said a new Supreme Court review would have a different posture, because earlier shadow-docket rulings looked only at a few issues, mostly torture.
Ahmed Soliman, a 30-year-old Egyptian man who lived in Arizona for most of his life, was removed by ICE to Equatorial Guinea in April.
Soliman and an Eritrean third-country national have been missing for more than a week after authorities there arrested them.
A DHS spokesperson told the American Prospect that ICE is not responsible for what happens to people after they are expelled to a third country.
Hours before Friday’s decision, a private jet often chartered by ICE landed in Accra, Ghana, where ICE has sent more third-country nationals in the past year than to any other African country.
Opinion
Matt Adams, legal director at the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, said DHS used third-country removal to terrorize people authorized to live here for decades and to circumvent immigration-court protections.
Matt Adams said the First Circuit’s holding makes clear that the third-country removal program blatantly violates the law.
The lawyers said the ruling may not stop the Supreme Court from using the shadow docket to stay it and let ICE keep using the policy during an appeal.
Immigration attorneys and rights groups said the decision was unlikely to help the tens of thousands of people already sent to third countries.
The American Prospect said many of those diplomatic assurances have proved flimsy.
Dana Camilleri told the American Prospect the Supreme Court’s shadow-docket stay had a terrible impact.
Dana Camilleri said she had zero confidence the Supreme Court would not stay the ruling again if the administration appeals.
Soliman’s lawyers believe the arrest was retaliation for speaking to the press, including the American Prospect, about conditions at the hotel where he and dozens of other third-country nationals were imprisoned.
Trina Realmuto said the justices would now be looking at the whole case, which could come out differently.
Dana Camilleri did not expect the appeals ruling to help Soliman or the thousands of other people already removed to third countries.
Dana Camilleri said the government will probably keep saying Soliman is not in its custody.
Dana Camilleri said it will take a public uproar.
The American Prospect said that if third-country nationals were on that flight, they may be the last for now.