Trump's 'third country' deportations are illegal, judge rules
Trump's 'third country' deportations are illegal, judge rules
Amanda Lee Myers, USA TODAYWed, February 25, 2026 at 11:40 PM UTC
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A recent Department of Homeland Security policy that allows immigrants to be deported to countries that aren't their own could put them in danger and is unlawful, a federal judge has ruled.
The department must not remove migrants to so-called "third countries," U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy said in his ruling on Wednesday, Feb. 25. The practice, Murphy said, amounts to dropping people off in "parts unknown" and, "as long as the Department doesn’t already know that there’s someone standing there waiting to shoot ... that’s fine."
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"It is not fine, nor is it legal," Murphy said in the ruling, citing a U.S. law that prevents the government from removing someone to a country where their "life or freedom would be threatened" because of their "race, religion, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion."
"These are our laws, and it is with profound gratitude for the unbelievable luck of being born in the United States of America that this Court affirms these and our nation’s bedrock principle: that no 'person' in this country may be 'deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,'" Murphy wrote.
He further criticized the Department of Homeland Security's removal policy for failing to require immigration officers to give a person notice or an opportunity to object before removing them to "an unfamiliar and potentially dangerous country" as long as the government has gotten "assurances" that they won't be exposed to torture or persecution.
"This new policy − which purports to stand in for the protections Congress has mandated − fails to satisfy due process for a raft of reasons, not least of which is that nobody really knows anything about these purported 'assurances,'" Murphy wrote. "Whom do they cover? What do they cover? Why has the Government deemed them credible? How can anyone even know for certain that they exist?"
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He continued: "These are basic questions that the Constitution permits a person to ask before the Government takes away their last and only lifeline."
The Department of Homeland Security told USA TODAY in a statement that the agency "must be allowed to execute its lawful authority and remove illegal aliens to a country willing to accept them."
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The department cited two previous Supreme Court stays in the case and said they're "confident we will be vindicated again."
"The Biden Administration allowed millions of illegal aliens to flood our country, and the Trump Administration has the constitutional authority to remove these criminal illegal aliens and clean up this national security nightmare," the agency added. "If these activists judges had their way, aliens who are so uniquely barbaric that their own countries won’t take them back, including convicted murderers, child rapists, and drug traffickers, would walk free on American streets."
Murphy, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, suspended his order for 15 days to give the department time to appeal the case, which observers believe is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In his ruling, Murphy said there were numerous examples of the government removing or attempting to remove immigrants without criminal records to third countries.
He cited the case of a Guatemalan man, identified only as O.C.G., who did not have any known criminal history and had been granted a reprieve from being taken back to his home country because he had experienced sexual violence there. The government then "threw him on a bus to Mexico, where he had just been raped, and where he was quickly sent back to Guatemala, the place an immigration judge had just found he would likely be persecuted."
Migrants and asylum seekers are patted down by security personnel as they prepare to board a bus after being detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in Somerton, Arizona, on May 11, 2023.
OCG's attorneys said that he "remains in hiding in Guatemala."
Murphy's ruling stems from a class-action lawsuit filed on March 23, 2025, by four non-U.S. citizens, including O.C.G. The other migrants who filed the lawsuit include a Cuban man living in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, a Honduran man living in Fort Worth, Texas, and an Ecuadorian man living in Milford, Massachusetts. They were all facing imminent deportation to third countries at the time the lawsuit was filed.
USA TODAY is seeking an update on whether they have been removed or remain in the United States.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump administration's 'third country' deportations are illegal: Judge
Source: “AOL Breaking”
