The Court Just Legalized Disappearance

The Supreme Court has greenlit a system that erases people, including children, asylum seekers, even citizens.

Last month, we laid it bare. In Exiled by Design, we uncovered the machinery behind the Trump administration’s secretive third-country deportation regime, a global system quietly designed to erase people, not just undocumented migrants but also asylum seekers, children, Green card holders, people with cancer, and even U.S. citizens.

It was brutal. It was lawless. But it wasn’t final. In March, a federal district court issued an injunction, a temporary block on third-country deportations without due process.

Until today.

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See our reporting on third-country deportations here:

Exiled by Design: How Trump’s Deportation Machine Went Global

The Supreme Court Has Spoken and Said Nothing

In a chilling 6–3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court just handed that deportation machine the legitimacy it was missing. Without a hearing. Without an opinion. Without a single named explanation, the conservative majority stayed a lower court’s ruling that had imposed a simple requirement: that migrants be told where they’re being sent and given a chance to object if they feared torture or death.

Now, they don’t have to be told anything at all.

Justice Sotomayor, in dissent, called it what it is, a system that rewards lawlessness by the executive branch and facilitates disappearances of human beings in violation of standing court orders. Her words read like an obituary for due process.

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What the Court Actually Did and What Happens Next

Let’s be clear: the Supreme Court did not issue a final ruling on the constitutionality of third-country deportations without notice or due process.

What the Court did today was procedural, but profoundly dangerous.

In a 6–3 unsigned decision, the justices issued a stay on a lower court’s injunction. That injunction had temporarily required the government to:

• Notify migrants where they were being deported, and

• Give them a chance to raise a claim that they’d face torture or persecution in that country.

By staying that order, the Supreme Court said: The government can resume these deportations without telling people where they’re going or giving them any way to object while the full case moves through the appeals process.

It didn’t say this was legal. It didn’t say it wasn’t.

It just let it happen.

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What’s Still Possible

The legal battle isn’t over, at least not yet. The case will now proceed to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, which could:

• Uphold the original lower court ruling and reinstate notice and due process requirements, or

• Side with the administration and expand the executive’s power to deport without transparency.

After that, the Supreme Court could retake the case, this time for a full review, where it would be forced to finally decide: Is it legal for the United States to deport people, including children, refugees, and legal residents, to countries where they could be tortured, raped, or killed, without telling them or letting them object?

That will be the ultimate legal showdown.

But Wait! There’s a Catch!

But here’s the problem: by the time that showdown arrives, the damage will already be done.

Hundreds, maybe thousands, will have already been deported into violence. Their cases will be closed. Their locations will be unknown. Their names will be erased from the system.

ICE is not required to publicly track who is detained, why, where they’re sent, or whether they were deported lawfully. There is no public-facing system for real-time deportation records; only an annual, aggregated report is available. If someone is wrongly deported, there’s often no trail to follow.

It also means that the slippery slope is greased. If there are no records of who was detained, why, and where they were sent, we have no guarantee that they were not citizens, green card holders, or those with other legal statuses. It is the perfect cover for removing political enemies.

And as a reminder, reporting has consistently shown that the ‘hardened criminals” and “national security risks” being deported have no criminal record. In fact, advisor Stephen Miller has encouraged ICE to go to convenience stores, work sites, Home Depots, and other locations and round up whomever they please. This, despite the fact that ICE was tasked with investigating and targeting specific individuals based on credible evidence.

See our reporting on Stephen Miller here:

Trump’s Inquisitor Ascends

Fear by Design: Inside Trump’s ICE Deportation Machine

Today’s decision doesn’t close the door on justice. It just makes sure that many won’t live to see it.

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Disappeared by Design

The ruling clears the way for the resumption of third-country deportations to nations that have no ties to the deportees, often no knowledge they’re coming, and in some cases, no functioning governments at all.

Earlier this year, eight migrants — from Cuba, Mexico, Myanmar, and Laos — were placed on a U.S. military flight and dumped at an airstrip in South Sudan. No documents. No translators. No plan. South Sudan wasn't even notified. They were simply told to survive.

In Costa Rica, 135 Eastern Europeans, including 65 children, were flown in from the United States in February. They weren’t from Costa Rica. Many were fleeing the war in Ukraine. They had their documents seized and were placed in “Temporary Migrant Care Centers” — a sanitized phrase for a legal black hole.

One green card holder, Aasis Subedi, was deported to Nepal. He is not Nepali. Bhutan, his original country, refused to take him back. He now lives in a refugee camp, stateless, without access to his wife and children in the U.S.

Even Citizenship Doesn’t Protect You

This spring, two U.S.-born children — one just two years old — were deported to Honduras with their undocumented mother. No hearing. No legal justification. Just gone.

In another case, a 7-year-old girl and her 4-year-old brother, who has stage 4 cancer, were deported mid-treatment. No process. No appeal. No public explanation.

The administration is now pushing to end birthright citizenship altogether, meaning these stories may soon shift from tragic exceptions to the standard operating procedure.

The Rubicon Is Behind Us

This is not immigration enforcement. It is a post-legal, post-citizenship purge.

A scalable, exportable model for quietly removing the unwanted, not just from the U.S., but from visibility, from legal recognition, from the moral ledger.

The Supreme Court didn’t just enable this. It consecrated it. It affirmed a future where someone’s rights depend not on law or evidence, but on the executive’s willingness to grant them.

And if you think this is about race, remember this: it's not just brown people anymore. It’s Ukrainian children, white Eastern Europeans, Indian students, Vietnamese asylum seekers, and English-speaking toddlers born in Detroit.

This isn’t just racism. It’s authoritarianism.

We Told You Then. We're Telling You Again.

The machine has been built. The Court has approved it, and now it will run, powered by indifference and shielded by silence.

If we don’t fight this now, no document will protect you. No birthplace. No status. No appeal.

No one is coming to save us, folx. Yes, these actions violate numerous international norms and treaties, many of which the US helped draft. However, none are willing to risk confronting the United States over these actions. Moreover, the US holds veto powers at the UN, has made it clear that the ICC has no jurisdiction, and has the military might and economic power to crush anyone who opposes it.

What You Can Do

We must save ourselves. That means organizing, energizing our elected officials, and supporting the watchdogs who do the work.

Call Congress and demand immediate hearings and protections for asylum seekers, TPS holders, green card holders, and citizen children.

Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

Sample Script:

Hello, my name is [Your Name], and I'm a constituent from [City, State, ZIP].

I’m calling because I’m profoundly disturbed by the Supreme Court’s recent decision to pause due‑process protections for migrants facing third‑country deportation meaning people can now be sent to countries they’ve never been to, without notice, a hearing, or any right to object.

This is not just immigration policy; it undermines the Fifth Amendment, U.S. obligations under the Refugee Convention and the Convention Against Torture, and puts children, green‑card holders, and even citizens at risk.

I urge [Senator/Representative Name] to demand immediate Congressional oversight and to support legislation or funding restrictions that:

• Require notice and hearing before any deportation,

• Protect asylum seekers, TPS holders, legal residents, and citizen children,

• Ban third‑country deportations until safety and transparency are guaranteed.

The Supreme Court didn’t say this is lawful; it just allowed it to happen. We need our elected leaders to act before irreversible harm is done.

Thank you, and I’d appreciate a follow‑up from your office about what [Name] plans to do.

Support the people fighting this in the dark:

• ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project

• Human Rights Watch

• RAICES

• Kids in Need of Defense (KIND)

Break the silence. Share this report. Raise the alarm.
Because the people being deported can’t speak for themselves. Most of them don’t even know what’s happening to them until it’s too late.

The Supreme Court just handed authoritarianism a boarding pass.

It’s on us to cancel the flight.

Bibliography:

• Supreme Court of the United States. DVD v. DHS, No. 24A1153. Stay order issued June 23, 2025.

• Gerstein, Josh, and Kyle Cheney. “Supreme Court Eases Rapid Deportations to Countries Where Immigrants Have No Ties.” Politico, June 23, 2025.

• Reyes, Trina. “Supreme Court Lifts Limits on Trump Deporting Migrants to Countries Not Their Own.” Reuters, June 24, 2025.

• Quinn, Melissa. “Supreme Court Lets Trump Administration Resume Deportations to Third Countries Without Notice for Now.” CBS News, June 23, 2025.

• Dwyer, Devin, and Laura Romero. “Supreme Court Allows Trump to Resume 3rd-Country Removals Without Court-Ordered Due Process Requirements.” ABC News, June 23, 2025.

• The Guardian. “US Supreme Court Clears Way for Trump to Deport Migrants to Countries Not Their Own.” June 23, 2025.

• “Liberal Justices Slam ‘Incomprehensible’ SCOTUS Majority in Furious Dissent.” The Daily Beast, June 23, 2025.

• “Supreme Court Allows Trump Administration to Swiftly Deport Migrants to Third Countries.” Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2025.

• “AP News: Supreme Court Allows Trump to Restart Swift Deportation of Migrants Away from Their Home Countries.” AP News, June 23, 2025.

• Washington Post. “Supreme Court for Now Allows Trump to Deport Migrants to ‘Third Countries.’” June 23, 2025.

• Meetze, Drew. “US Homeland Security Asks Supreme Court to Stay Temporary Block on Migrants Deportations to Third Countries.” JURIST, May 28, 2025.

• Jurecic, Quinta. “The Chaos and Cruelty of DVD v. DHS.” Lawfare, June 23, 2025.

• “Third Country Removals: Procedural Protections.” Immigration Litigation Newsletter, May 2025.