The Trump administration’s policy on deporting immigrants to third countries is unlawful, a federal appeals court ruled Friday, a decision that could halt a program that has already sent thousands of people to countries that are not their own.
A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit unanimously agreed with a lower court judge’s decision in February that the Department of Homeland Security’s policy violates due process rights by failing to give migrants sufficient notice and a chance to raise fear-based claims to contest their deportations to third countries.
The appeals court’s decision marks a major setback for the administration, which has sought to establish third-country deportations as a key part of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign. Since Trump took office last year, DHS has sent more than 25,000 migrants to third countries, mostly in Latin America and Africa, according to public records. The program has raised fierce objections from congressional Democrats and legal challenges from human rights advocates who say the deportees face dangerous conditions and inhumane treatment in the countries where they are being sent.
Legal experts said the administration is likely to appeal to the Supreme Court and seek a stay on the 1st Circuit’s decision that would allow DHS to continue sending migrants to third countries. For now, however, the deportation flights should be immediately grounded, said Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, who was among the team of attorneys who brought the class-action case.
“This is a huge win,” she said. “All those deportation flights should not be taking off because the policy under which people got put on planes and targeted for removal is unlawful.”
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Administration officials say third-country deportations are the only way to remove the most difficult to deport immigrants, including violent criminals who have committed rapes and murders. These immigrants have final removal orders from U.S. immigration judges, but many are protected by federal law from being sent back to home countries where they are likely to face persecution. Others cannot be returned because their home countries refuse to accept them.
The lawsuit stemmed from DHS’s policy memos last year stating the government could deport migrants to third countries with as little as six hours’ notice, even if U.S. officials have not received assurances that the deportees would be safe from persecution or torture. Those being flown to places that have offered those assurances could be deported with no advance notice.
The plaintiffs filed their lawsuit in March 2025, arguing that the U.S. government was violating federal law and sending immigrants to places where they could be harmed or killed, without giving them a chance to argue against it, including a Guatemalan man deported to Mexico, where he had been kidnapped and raped.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston barred the Trump administration from removing immigrants without giving them a “meaningful” opportunity to challenge it, and he issued a preliminary injunction in April 2025 enjoining the government from continuing with the deportation flights. Two months later, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority paused the judge’s decision in a brief, unsigned statement that did not explain its reasoning, but it cleared the way for the removals to resume as the legal case played out.
Murphy issued a final judgment in February 2026, vacating the administration’s policy, and the Trump administration quickly filed an appeal.
The 1st Circuit panel agreed with most of Murphy’s decision, saying that there was nothing in the public record or court filings that showed which countries had provided the State Department with diplomatic assurances that the immigrants would not face abuse.
They added that “we have some difficulty seeing how a receiving country can credibly provide blanket assurances that all removed noncitizens will not be persecuted or tortured there unless it intends to provide them with some sort of affirmative protection against rogue agents and non-state actors.”
The post Appeals court says Trump administration’s third-country deportation policy is unlawful appeared first on Washington Post.
