The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily paved the way for the Trump administration to resume deporting immigrants to countries where they have no ties.
The high court issued an emergency ruling pausing a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit on Wednesday, that blocked deportations to countries not listed on removal orders. In an emergency application to the Supreme Court on Thursday, the Trump administration argued that blocking the removals caused “harm” and that the Department of Homeland Security already had to cancel removal flights to other countries, with more to be canceled if the block remains.
“Third-country removals require careful negotiation with foreign governments, which are rarely enthusiastic about accepting foreign citizens (especially criminals), and often requires obtaining travel documents and devoting significant manpower to the staging of flights to protect government officers and flight crews,” the administration said in the emergency application. “Disruption of those plans thus imposes massive costs on the government and invariably requires new rounds of diplomatic engagement with countries who may be all the more skeptical of our removal efforts given the disruption.”
The Trump administration has spent millions of dollars to deport people who are originally from Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America to countries in Africa where Swahili, Amharic or French may be primary languages.
Amid its draconian immigration enforcement efforts, the Trump administration has also pledged $410 million to help secretly facilitate agreements with 31 countries for the removals, according to an investigation by The Washington Post in which it obtained and reviewed internal government documents. Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leona are among some of the countries that the U.S. has paid to be part of its third-country deportation network, according to The Washington Post analysis.
Human rights groups and advocates have urged a halt in the deportations to third countries as well as called for African countries to reject the deportations.
“African leaders must speak out against US unlawful third country removals which are discriminatory and contrary to human rights,” Marceau Sivieude and Tigere Chagutah, regional directors at Amnesty International, said. “They must also guarantee the protection of the rights of people forcibly removed in their countries as well as refugees, asylum seekers and migrants on their own soil.”
More than 22,000 people have been deported to at least 26 countries through the Trump administration’s “third-party deportation program” as of August 2026, according to multiple non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.
The Emancipator Breaking News Correspondent Kate Amistoso contributed to this report.
