Judge Rules Illegal Immigrants Can Dispute Third Country Deportations

The government must provide them with notice and give them opportunity to challenge their new destination, a Massachusetts judge rules.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents make an arrest during an early morning operation in Park Ridge, Ill., on Sept. 19, 2025. Erin Hooley/AP Photo

A federal judge ruled on Feb. 25 that the government cannot deport illegal immigrants to so-called third countries without giving them “meaningful notice” and an opportunity to dispute their removal.

In Wednesday’s ruling, Massachusetts District Judge Brian Murphy declared unlawful two policy memos, one by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and another by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Those memos said that if the U.S. had received credible diplomatic assurances from a third country that deportees would not face persecution or torture, they could be sent there without any extra procedures.

“[DHS] has adopted a policy whereby it may take people and drop them off in parts unknown ... and, ‘as long as the Department doesn’t already know that there’s someone standing there waiting to shoot ... that’s fine,’” he wrote.

“It is not fine, nor is it legal.”

Murphy ruled that federal regulations required that illegal immigrants be deported to either their home country, or another country as designated by an immigration judge. They also have the right to “raise a country-specific claim” against being deported to a third country, he wrote.

The case started last March, when four plaintiffs filed a class-action suit after the government tried to deport them to countries other than their home nation, without notice or opportunity to object to their destination. In April, the judge expanded the class of plaintiffs to include anyone with a final removal order to a third country after Feb. 18, 2025.

Murphy blocked those removals on April 18, but on May 21 he found the government had violated his order by removing six individuals to South Sudan in Africa. He ordered the government to provide them with lawyers and hearings on whether they were afraid to live in that country.

In the meantime, the federal government appealed to the Supreme Court, which stayed Murphy’s order in June.

In its stay application, the government said the lower court proceedings were “usurping the Executive’s authority over immigration policy,” and “ wreaking havoc on the third country removal process.” It characterized some of the deportees as “criminal aliens who had been in the country for years or decades after receiving final orders of removal, despite having committed horrific crimes,” including sexual assault and murder.

The same day the Supreme Court stayed his April ruling, Murphy issued an order saying his May directive was still in effect, since the government had not included it in their petition. The justices had to issue a follow-up clarification saying it had intended to invalidate both of the judge’s rulings.

In a brief, unsigned order, the majority said Murphy was attempting to use his May directive—granting the deportees lawyers and hearings—to enforce the ruling from April, which he could not do.

Justice Elena Kagan, in a short opinion, noted that she didn’t want to halt Murphy’s decision from last April.

“But a majority of this Court saw things differently, and I do not see how a district court can compel compliance with an order that this Court has stayed.”

Murphy has suspended his own Feb. 25 ruling for 15 days, giving the government time to ask an appeals court to halt it for a longer period. He wrote that he didn’t think the government’s legal argument was strong, but noted that the Supreme Court had stayed his previous, temporary block on the DHS policy.

“Ultimately, this Court could be missing something in the final analysis,” he wrote.