A US federal appeals court has blocked the Trump administration’s policy of rapidly deporting migrants to countries other than their own, ruling that they must be given a meaningful opportunity to raise safety concerns before removal.
A three-judge panel of the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston largely upheld a February judgment which found the Department of Homeland Security’s third-country removal policy unlawful.
The case arose from a class-action lawsuit examining the legal protections owed to migrants facing deportation to countries with which they have no ties.
Writing for the panel, US Circuit Judge Seth Aframe rejected the administration’s narrower interpretation of the law. He said migrants must be given a “meaningful” chance to object on safety grounds before being removed.
The appeals court did overturn part of the earlier ruling on procedural grounds. That element concerned whether officials must first attempt to deport migrants to countries with which they have established links.
Trina Realmuto, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs at the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said the judgment confirmed that “due process and the protections Congress enacted against persecution and torture cannot be circumvented by putting someone on a plane to a country that was never part of their removal proceedings”.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately comment. The Trump administration is expected to appeal, potentially taking the dispute to the Supreme Court.
Third-country deportations
The policy, introduced in March 2025, allowed the administration to carry out removals with minimal notice where officials had diplomatic assurances that migrants would not face persecution.
Under the programme, the US reached agreements allowing more than 25,000 migrants to be sent to at least 29 third countries, most frequently Mexico, according to Third Country Deportation Watch, a tracker operated by Refugees International and Human Rights First.
The programme has already come before the Supreme Court twice. In 2025, the justices cleared the way for eight men, including nationals of Cuba, Myanmar and Vietnam, to be deported to South Sudan, despite a US State Department warning against travel there because of “crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict”.
The Department of Homeland Security described those removals as “a win”, while rights groups said they breached basic protections.
