A federal appeals court handed the Trump administration a key victory on Monday by allowing its third-country deportation policy to continue while a lawsuit challenging it continues to be litigated.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit ruled 2-1 in favor of halting the lower court’s ruling, which found the administration’s policy of deporting illegal immigrants to countries other than their country of origin was unlawful. The ruling builds on a temporary halt to the lower court’s order issued last week, allowing the policy to remain in place until the case is argued before the three-judge panel.
The panel did not offer an explanation for the decision but asked the DOJ and the people suing the administration over the policy to file briefs over the next month, with oral arguments set before the panel shortly after all briefs are in.
U.S. Circuit Judges Jeffrey Howard, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, and Seth Aframe, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, were in the majority to grant the pause of the lower court’s ruling, while U.S. Circuit Judge Lara Montecalvo, a Biden appointee, said she would have denied the request.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, a Biden appointee, had blocked Trump’s third-country deportation policy last month, ruling it was “not fine, nor is it legal,” even after the Supreme Court had twice allowed the policy to continue in the interim via their emergency docket.
The Supreme Court previously lifted Murphy’s preliminary injunction blocking the third-country deportation policy in June 2025, issuing a 6-3 unsigned order that did not elaborate on the rationale behind the majority’s decision. Shortly after the Supreme Court lifted the block, Murphy still tried to enforce another order that built off the one the justices lifted — this one blocking the deportation of eight criminal illegal immigrants to South Sudan. The high court quickly rebuked him in a 7-2 unsigned order. Murphy’s ruling last month was a final ruling on the matter, which supersedes the preliminary injunction that was lifted by the Supreme Court.
Attorney General Pam Bondi celebrated the ruling Monday, posting on X that it was a key win for President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration agenda.
“There is more work ahead on this important issue, but this is a key win for [Trump’s] immigration agenda,” Bondi said. Justice Department “attorneys will continue fighting tirelessly to advance and protect President Trump’s policies in court.”
APPEALS COURT ALLOWS TRUMP TO CONTINUE ‘THIRD-COUNTRY’ DEPORTATIONS FOR NOW
The ruling in the 1st Circuit on Monday marks a rare victory in an appeals court made up of mostly Democrat-appointed judges.
During the first year of Trump’s second term in the White House, the circuit had denied efforts to lift high-profile blocks of various Trump policies. When the administration appealed those 1st Circuit rulings to the Supreme Court, the majority on the high court ruled in the Trump administration’s favor each time in 2025.