Justice Sonia Sotomayor sharply rebuked the Supreme Court, accusing the majority of committing a “gross abuse” of discretion after the high court handed the Trump administration a critical victory in its deportation efforts on Monday.
In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court’s conservative justices sided with the Department of Homeland Security, allowing, for now, the administration to deport people to third countries.
Sotomayor, joined by fellow liberal justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote in part of the 19-page dissent, “This Court now intervenes to grant the Government emergency relief from an order it has repeatedly defied. I cannot join so gross an abuse of the Court’s equitable discretion.”
The divided U.S. Supreme Court temporarily lifted a lower court order that had required individuals be given a chance to challenge their removal to a third country. In a brief unsigned order, the court’s conservative majority did not explain its reasoning, while all three liberal justices dissented, warning the decision could have dire consequences for vulnerable migrants.
The ruling followed a May incident in which eight migrants—originally from countries such as Myanmar, Vietnam, and Cuba—were placed on a flight to South Sudan, despite a standing order from U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy requiring that migrants be allowed to argue they could face torture if removed to a country not their own. When immigration officials proceeded anyway, the plane was diverted to a U.S. naval base in Djibouti, where the migrants were housed in a converted shipping container under harsh conditions as legal advocates awaited updates.
Sotomayor condemned the decision, saying it exposes “thousands to the risk of torture or death.” She wrote, “The government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone anywhere without notice or an opportunity to be heard.”
Murphy’s original ruling did not ban third-country deportations outright, but it mandated that individuals must have a meaningful opportunity to make their case. The Trump administration has increasingly relied on third-country agreements—with nations such as Panama and Costa Rica—due to the refusal of some countries to accept deportees. South Sudan, the destination in this case, has faced years of civil unrest and violence since its independence in 2011.
The court’s emergency decision marks another key moment in the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration agenda, which has faced repeated legal challenges. In a similar case involving the deportation of Venezuelan nationals to a notorious prison in El Salvador, the Supreme Court previously ruled that migrants must be given a “reasonable time” to appeal their removal orders in court.
Monday’s ruling adds to a growing list of immigration cases where the court has sided with the administration, including the termination of temporary legal protections that had shielded nearly one million immigrants. The third-country deportation policy remains one of several flashpoints as the administration continues to clash with judges who have slowed or reversed its most controversial immigration moves.
In a separate instance, Judge Murphy—appointed by President Joe Biden—ordered the return of a gay Guatemalan man who was wrongly deported to Mexico, where he reported being raped and extorted. The man, identified as O.C.G. in court records, became the first known deportee to be returned to U.S. custody during Trump’s second term.
This article includes reporting by The Associated Press.
Updates: 6/23/25, 5:31 p.m. ET: This article was updated with new information and remarks.
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