US to seek Supreme Court relief after court blocked third-country removals, Blanche says

The Trump ​administration will appeal to the US ​Supreme Court a lower ‌court ruling rejecting ​a policy that allowed authorities to rapidly deport migrants to countries other than their own, US ‌Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Thursday.

"Without even allowing the government a chance to respond, and in the dark of night, a federal appeals court blocked us from ‌conducting all third-country removals of illegal aliens, an entirely legal and invaluable ‌tool to stem the tide of illegal immigration," he wrote on in an X post. "We will immediately seek relief from the Supreme Court, which previously granted a stay in this ⁠very same ​case."

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. A US federal appeals court rejected policy on Friday.

A three-judge panel of ⁠the ​1st US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston largely upheld a February decision by a lower court 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.