The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed a lower-court judgment requiring meaningful notice and an opportunity to raise persecution or torture claims before the United States sends a person to a third country, allowing faster removals while the justices review the policy.

The unsigned order also granted full review in Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D. and placed the case on an expedited track for argument in December. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they would have denied the stay, producing an apparent 6-3 division on whether the lower-court judgment should remain effective during the appeal.

The order does not decide whether the policy is lawful. It gives the Department of Homeland Security wider latitude to remove people to nations not listed on their original deportation orders while the case proceeds. The final ruling could determine how much notice and process authorities must provide when a destination changes.

The Stay Has an Immediate Operational Effect

The Court stayed a February judgment from U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Massachusetts and said the stay will last until the Supreme Court sends down its judgment. The lower courts had not prohibited third-country removals altogether. They had required advance notice of the destination and a meaningful opportunity to present a country-specific claim before removal.

The administration told the Court that the First Circuit’s decision had forced it to cancel a flight carrying about 70 people to three countries and remove nearly 150 others from planned flights. The Justice Department’s application characterized third-country removal as an essential enforcement tool when a person’s home country or another designated country will not accept them. Those figures and descriptions are the government’s representations in litigation, not independent findings by the Court.

AP reported that third-country transfers have been carried out through agreements covering more than two dozen nations, with most people sent to Mexico. The policy has also involved destinations where individuals may have no citizenship, residence or family connection, which makes the notice question more consequential than in an ordinary removal to a home country.

DHS Guidance Turns on Diplomatic Assurances

The disputed guidance distinguishes between countries that have provided what DHS regards as credible assurances against persecution or torture and countries that have not. According to the plaintiffs’ brief, the policy permits removal without individualized notice when the department relies on those assurances. Otherwise, officials provide notice, and a screening occurs only if the person affirmatively states a fear of the destination.

The plaintiffs said supplemental guidance generally allows removal 24 hours after notice and, in exigent circumstances, after six hours if the person has a reasonable means to contact a lawyer. They argue that those timelines are too short to identify country-specific risks, obtain evidence and secure counsel. The administration responds that more elaborate procedures can disrupt negotiated flights, consume substantial resources and interfere with foreign governments’ willingness to accept deportees.

The Case Is About Statutes as Well as Due Process

The First Circuit held on September 18 that immigration law and implementing regulations require effective notice and a meaningful opportunity to raise a fear claim before a third-country removal. Its opinion concluded that DHS could not create an exception to the procedures governing claims of likely persecution. It also read the federal law implementing the Convention Against Torture to require a meaningful chance to present a torture claim.

The Supreme Court directed the parties to address three central questions: whether the district court had jurisdiction, whether it could grant classwide declaratory relief and set aside the guidance under the Administrative Procedure Act, and whether the policy violates immigration law, the Fifth Amendment or federal protections implementing the torture convention. That framing means the eventual decision may turn on the power of lower courts and the form of relief, not only on how much process a deportee should receive.

The government argues that federal immigration statutes sharply limit judicial intervention in removal decisions and that the district court imposed procedures Congress did not authorize. The plaintiffs counter that they are not challenging their final removal orders; they are challenging a later decision to send them somewhere new without a realistic chance to seek protection. The First Circuit largely accepted that distinction, but the Supreme Court has now agreed to reconsider it.

The Competing Risks Are Unequal but Concrete

The administration’s brief said the lower-court judgment could leave 1,432 people with criminal convictions awaiting third-country removal in the United States, including 139 in detention with convictions for serious offenses. The plaintiffs’ filing said the affected class also includes long-term residents with no criminal history and people previously granted protection from return to their home countries. Both points can be true because the policy applies across a heterogeneous group with final removal orders.

The potential harms also operate differently. Delayed flights can impose financial, detention and diplomatic costs on the government, but removal to a country where a person is persecuted or tortured can be irreversible. Reuters reported that the plaintiffs allege some deportees were detained, abused, disappeared or transferred onward to countries from which the United States had already protected them. Those allegations remain contested litigation claims, but they explain why notice and timing are central rather than merely procedural details.

December Arguments Will Test the Policy’s Foundation

The practical question before December is whether DHS resumes removals using its short-notice framework and diplomatic assurances. The legal question is broader: whether federal law allows that framework and whether lower courts can invalidate it for an entire class. The stay gives the administration operational authority but no endorsement on the merits.

A final ruling could validate the guidance, require additional safeguards or resolve the dispute on jurisdiction and remedial authority. Until then, the clearest result of Tuesday’s order is temporary but significant: third-country deportations may proceed without the lower courts’ notice-and-hearing requirements, even as the Supreme Court prepares to decide whether those requirements are legally mandatory.