Immigrants bear the risk as third-country deportations continue during Supreme Court review

A removal order does not settle the destination

Federal law provides for destinations other than a person’s country of citizenship under specified conditions. The administration says it uses third-country removals when people with final removal orders cannot be returned to their home countries or those countries will not accept them. The dispute is not simply whether someone must leave the United States. It is whether they can contest the danger of being sent somewhere else.

The reach of the policy is substantial. The Associated Press reports that about 25,000 people have been deported to more than two dozen countries under often-secret agreements, most of them to Mexico. That count does not tell us how many faced danger in the places they were sent. It does show how many lives can be shaped by decisions about destination and notice.

Immigrant advocates told AP that some people have faced detention or serious safety risks after arrival. They also say many affected people have no criminal convictions. Those are advocates’ accounts, not proof that every transfer is dangerous. They are reasons to take an individual warning seriously rather than assume an agreement between governments answers every person’s concerns.

A federal district court’s Feb. 25 judgment required meaningful notice and a chance to raise a country-specific protection claim before removal. The First Circuit largely affirmed that judgment on Sept. 18. Such a chance is not a promise that the person can remain in the United States. It is an opportunity to explain why the government’s chosen destination could put them in harm’s way.

The government’s timetable is not the whole measure

The administration has an argument the court must take seriously: It has final removal orders to carry out, and it says added notice and hearings impede that work. The government says receiving countries provide assurances against persecution or torture. Those assurances matter, but they cannot tell officials everything a person might know about the risk they face in a specific place.

In its Supreme Court filing, the administration said the lower-court ruling caused it to cancel a flight carrying about 70 people to three countries. That is the government’s account of an operational cost, not a judicial finding that those people could safely be sent. A delayed flight is consequential. So is sending someone away before they can raise a serious fear about where it is going.

The answer is not to pretend that a final removal order decides every later question. It establishes that a person must leave; it does not, by itself, resolve a claim about persecution or torture in a particular third country. An assurance from the receiving government and an account from the person being sent there should not be treated as interchangeable. Only one can describe that person’s own fear.

The Supreme Court had allowed the policy to continue temporarily at earlier stages of this case. Its latest stay again favors the government’s ability to proceed during litigation. That choice has a human cost: the administration can make destination decisions now, while the court will not hear arguments until December. A later ruling cannot give someone an advance chance to object to a departure that has already happened.

Keep people safe while the justices decide

The justices have agreed to consider questions about the district court’s authority, classwide relief and whether the policy complies with immigration law, due process and laws implementing protection against torture. Those questions deserve careful review. They do not require the administration to keep using a contested route for deportation while that review unfolds.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied the stay, though the court’s order does not give their reasons. The order also does not establish what safeguards the administration will use while the case proceeds. People facing removal should not have to guess whether they will get a meaningful chance to raise a country-specific danger before they leave.

The Trump administration controls whether to send people to third countries while the case is pending; it should pause those transfers until the Supreme Court rules. The justices control the stay; they should lift it and restore meaningful notice and an opportunity to raise protection claims. Before any third-country removals resume, the government should give people a real chance to contest the destination chosen for them.