A United States federal appeals court has rejected the Trump administration’s policy of rapidly deporting migrants to countries other than their own, in a ruling that lawyers on both sides expect to reach the Supreme Court.
A three-judge panel of the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled on Friday, largely upholding a February decision that found the Department of Homeland Security’s so-called third-country removal policy unlawful, Al Jazeera reported.
The case is a class action testing what process migrants are owed before being put on a plane to a country they have no connection to.
What the court decided
Writing for the panel, US Circuit Judge Seth Aframe held that migrants must be given a “meaningful” chance to raise safety concerns before removal, rejecting the administration’s narrower reading of the statute.
“DHS’s proposed interpretation would deny access to that protection to a substantial swath of noncitizens who are sent to third countries with no notice of their destination,” Aframe wrote.
The panel did not uphold the lower court in full. It overturned one part of the ruling on procedural grounds — the portion concerning whether officials must first attempt to deport a migrant to a country they actually have ties to. That is a narrowing of the original order, not of the core finding.
Trina Realmuto, who represents the plaintiffs for the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said the decision 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 scale of the programme
The single figure that establishes what is at stake appears in Al Jazeera’s account and not in the Daily Mirror’s: the United States has struck agreements to send more than 25,000 migrants to at least 29 third countries, most often Mexico.
The policy’s sharpest test came in 2025, when the Supreme Court cleared the way for eight men — nationals of Cuba, Myanmar and Vietnam — to be deported to South Sudan, a country the US State Department itself advises Americans against visiting because of “crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict.”
That is the pattern the due-process argument turns on: the destination is chosen by agreement between governments, and bears no relation to where the person came from or where they were ordered removed to.
How the case got here
The February 2026 decision now largely affirmed was handed down by US District Judge Brian Murphy, who found the administration had violated the law by removing migrants without an opportunity to challenge their destination.
The 1st Circuit panel included two appointees of President Biden, among them Aframe, and one judge appointed by a Republican president. The administration is expected to appeal.
Why it matters here
Third-country removal is not a uniquely American mechanism. Five European Union member states are separately pursuing “return hub” agreements with third countries — the same architecture of deporting people to states they have no tie to, negotiated government-to-government. Washington has also previously tightened the asylum interview itself, requiring visa applicants to state they hold no fear of persecution.
For Sri Lankans in US immigration proceedings, Friday’s ruling restores a procedural step rather than a right to remain: notice of where a person is being sent, and a hearing on whether they would be in danger there.
Not reported
Neither outlet gives the size of the certified class, the date by which the administration must seek Supreme Court review, or whether removals to third countries are paused while any appeal is pending. Neither says how many of the 25,000 removals under those 29 agreements have already been carried out, nor whether anyone already removed can seek return under the ruling. The 29 countries are not listed.
