By Nate Raymond
BOSTON, Sept 18 (Reuters) - A US federal appeals court rejected on Friday a policy adopted by the Trump administration that allows authorities to rapidly deport migrants to countries other than their own without giving them a chance to raise safety concerns.
Ruling in a case that is likely headed to the Supreme Court, a three-judge panel of the Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld a February decision by a lower-court judge that declared the Department of Homeland Security's policy unlawful.
The ruling came in a class-action lawsuit filed by migrants subject to deportation orders that has become a key test of what due-process protections the government must provide before removing people to countries with which they have no connection.
"This decision confirms 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," Trina Realmuto, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said.
Under President Donald Trump, the administration has entered into a series of agreements that have allowed it to send more than 25,000 migrants to at least 29 third countries, in many cases Mexico, according to Third Country Deportation Watch, a project run by Refugees International and Human Rights First.
The government is expected to appeal. Earlier in the case, the administration twice convinced the Supreme Court to lift a preliminary injunction protecting migrants' due-process rights, clearing the way for eight men to be deported to South Sudan.
The administration has also carried out third-country deportations of people to nations including Uganda, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia and the Central African Republic.
DHS General Counsel James Percival posted on X that the policy remains in force because the 1st Circuit's decision is not yet in effect.
"If you claim fear in your home country, DHS has the right to send you elsewhere," he said.
THIRD-COUNTRY DEPORTATIONS
In March 2025, DHS adopted a policy aimed at addressing individuals who were subject to final orders of deportation but had been granted protections in immigration court against being sent back to their countries of origin.
The policy would allow migrants to be sent to alternative countries if immigration authorities have credible diplomatic assurances they will not be persecuted or tortured there.
The policy called for only minimal notice before a migrant could be sent to a third country that had not given the State Department such assurances.
US District Judge Brian Murphy, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden, set aside the policy and concluded that it failed to protect migrants' due-process rights and could lead to their swift deportation to unfamiliar and potentially dangerous countries, without notice.
On appeal, the Trump administration contended that Murphy's order, if left intact, would usurp its authority to execute potentially thousands of valid orders of deportation to third countries.
But US Circuit Judge Seth Aframe, writing for Friday's panel, said Murphy adopted a "sensible" interpretation of the immigration law requiring migrants be given a "meaningful" chance to raise any concerns before they are deported.
"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. "We decline to adopt such an interpretation."
The panel included two Biden appointees, including Aframe, and a judge appointed by a Republican president.
However, the 1st Circuit overturned one part of Murphy's ruling on procedural grounds. It concerned whether the government must first try to deport migrants to countries they have ties to before sending them to third countries.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and William Mallard)
