The Supreme Court delivered a win Thursday to the Trump administration, ruling that a lower-court judge had overstepped by trying to block the deportation of eight criminal illegal migrants to South Sudan despite a previous high court order.
In a 7–2 decision, the justices rebuked U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, for defying the high court’s June 23 ruling that allowed the administration to move forward with third-country deportations while litigation continues. The majority said Murphy had no authority after that to enforce an earlier injunction the justices had already stayed.
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The Department of Justice asked the high court to intervene again last week, calling Murphy’s ruling “a lawless act of defiance” that had upended “sensitive diplomatic relations” and stalled the removal of illegal migrants to one of the world’s most unstable countries. South Sudan has been subject to a State Department travel warning due to “crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict.”
“Even if we accepted respondents’ characterization of the May 21 order, such a remedy would serve to ‘coerce’ the Government into ‘compliance’ and would be unenforceable given our stay of the underlying injunction,” the majority wrote.
Justice Elena Kagan, who dissented from the original June 23 decision to lift the injunction, nevertheless sided with the majority on Thursday.
“I do not see how a district court can compel compliance with an order that this Court has stayed,” Kagan wrote in a brief concurring opinion.
But liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, accusing the majority of rubber-stamping deportations that could expose migrants to grave harm.
“Other litigants must follow the rules, but the administration has the Supreme Court on speed dial,” Sotomayor wrote, arguing the high court’s decision risks sending “thousands to the risk of torture or death.”
The dispute stems from a class-action lawsuit filed by immigration advocates challenging Trump’s fast-tracked third-country deportation policy. The Department of Homeland Security began expanding rapid removals earlier this year, arguing that the policy is essential for deporting migrants convicted of crimes whose home countries refuse to take them back.
The Trump administration has maintained that it is acting lawfully, citing diplomatic assurances from South Sudan that deported individuals will not face torture. The Supreme Court previously permitted Trump to end temporary humanitarian protections that the Biden administration had extended for hundreds of thousands of migrants, and signaled its willingness to let contentious immigration policies proceed during ongoing legal battles.
Murphy’s original April 18 order had required the government to give migrants a chance to argue they would face torture if deported to a country to which they had no ties. After the high court stayed that injunction, Murphy attempted to continue blocking removals through a separate remedial order. Thursday’s decision shuts that door.
The ruling is the latest indication that the high court’s majority is siding with the administration on key immigration fights, even as litigation over due process protections for migrants remains unresolved.