Supreme Court Blesses Human Trafficking With No Explanation In Stunning Abandonment Of Rule Of Law

from the shameful-evil dept

The Supreme Court just gave the Trump administration a green light to traffic humans to random countries around the world—including war zones where migrants face torture, slavery, or death. And they did so while offering literally zero explanation for why this is legal or constitutional.

In a shadow docket ruling yesterday, the Court stayed a lower court order that required basic due process protections for people being shipped to third countries. No analysis of the complex legal issues. No acknowledgment that they’re rewarding the Trump regime for repeatedly violating court orders. Just: “go ahead and traffic people to Libya.”

This isn’t hyperbole. We’re talking about the US government grabbing people—some who entered legally seeking asylum—and shipping them to countries where they’ve never been, don’t speak the language, and face credible threats of violence. Some of those destination countries are actively selling migrants into slavery.

This non-ruling will go down in history as one of the most shameful and horrific rulings from the Supreme Court. We’re talking Dred Scott/Plessy v. Ferguson/Korematsu bad. An obviously horrific decision that attacks human rights and basic due process for no reason… and totally without explanation.

There is a righteous dissent from Justice Sotomayor that excoriates the majority for just how evil this decision is, and I was tempted to just post all of that as this post, but I fear this one requires some explanation.

The Background: How We Got To State-Sanctioned Human Trafficking

The legal backdrop makes this even more shocking. Just last month, the Supreme Court (for the second time) told the Trump DOJ it had to provide some level of “reasonable” due process to those being shipped to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act. For a brief moment, it seemed like even the conservatives recognized Trump’s lawlessness.

This case is a bit different. It involves people already deemed deportable. The question: can the US ship them literally anywhere in the world? Under existing law, the answer was yes—but with many limits and with guaranteed basic due process. Specifically, people facing “third country removal” had the right to a “reasonable fear” hearing where they could explain why being shipped to whatever random country the US picked might get them killed. And such removals were only supposed to take place if it was impossible to send them to countries they actually had a connection to.

This is actually important. While the issue of the US trafficking Venezuelans to El Salvador has been well covered, that was a deal with the Salvadoran government. There’s a separate issue of the US randomly shipping off people to a long list of dangerous countries, places where the people being shipped likely know no one, don’t know the language, and may be thousands of miles from anyone they do know. And some of those countries that the US is shipping people to are either war zones or engaged in selling migrants into slavery.

Even if you think immigration violations justify deportation, shipping people to countries where they face torture or slavery sounds like a crime against humanity. And many of these people entered legally seeking asylum—Trump has simply been revoking their status, another move the Court blessed a few weeks ago.

The Case: Government Defies Court Orders, SCOTUS Rewards Them

In this case (DHS v. D.V.D.), District Judge Brian Murphy had ordered DHS to provide basic due process before shipping people around the globe. The government’s response? It ignored him. Repeatedly. Remember Judge Murphy getting annoyed that DHS was shipping men to South Sudan? That was in violation of this restraining order. When he caught them lying about their removals, they kept lying.

Judge Murphy worked diligently to protect constitutional rights. The government thumbed its nose at him. And now the Supreme Court has rewarded that lawlessness.

The government not only gets away with ignoring Judge Murphy’s earlier order, it gets to effectively continue doing so. With no explanation as to why. This isn’t just horrific for due process and the people being trafficked this way, it’s a fucking insult to Judge Murphy who worked diligently to protect rights in this case.

Sotomayor’s Blistering Dissent Calls Out The Majority’s Cowardice

In matters of life and death, it is best to proceed with caution. In this case, the Government took the opposite approach. It wrongfully deported one plaintiff to Guatemala, even though an Immigration Judge found he was likely to face torture there. Then, in clear violation of a court order, it deported six more to South Sudan, a nation the State Department considers too unsafe for all but its most critical personnel. An attentive District Court’s timely intervention only narrowly prevented a third set of unlawful removals to Libya.

Rather than allowing our lower court colleagues to manage this high-stakes litigation with the care and attention it plainly requires, this Court now intervenes to grant the Government emergency relief from an order it has repeatedly defied. I cannot join so gross an abuse of the Court’s equitable discretion.

Basically, the government is doing something really obviously horrific and evil here, a lower court—somewhat heroically—stepped in to help, and the Supreme Court is saying “oh no, go ahead with the evil stuff.” It’s fucking crazy.

Sotomayor notes that these kinds of “third country removals” (i.e., to a country not of their origin nor where they have connections, but only “is willing to accept people the US removes”) are quite “burdensome” on the individuals involved and therefore extremely limited by law. That is, Sotomayor (unlike the majority of the court) recognizes that Congress has put significant conditions on such human trafficking, which the Trump regime is gleefully ignoring.

Noncitizens facing removal of any sort are entitled under international and domestic law to raise a claim under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Dec. 10, 1984, S. Treaty Doc. No. 100–20, 1465 U. N. T. S. 113. Article 3 of the Convention prohibits returning any person “to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.” The United States is a party to the Convention, and in 1998 Congress passed the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act to implement its commands. The Act provides that “[i]t shall be the policy of the United States not to expel, extradite, or otherwise effect the involuntary return of any person to a country in which there are substantial grounds for believing the person would be in danger of being subjected to torture, regardless of whether the person is physically present in the United States.” §2242(a), 112 Stat. 2681–822, codified as note to 8 U. S. C. §1231. It also directs the Executive to “prescribe regulations to implement” the Convention. §2242(b), 112 Stat. 2681–822. Those regulations provide, among other things, that “[a] removal order . . . shall not be executed in circumstances that would violate Article 3.” 28 CFR §200.1 (2024).

The Pattern of Lawlessness

Sotomayor then details how DHS repeatedly ignored court orders not to send men subject to deportation to specific countries where they faced credible risks of significant harm. Sometimes it appeared to just outright ignore them. Other times it played games with courts, such as claiming that a temporary restraining order (TRO) against DHS removing someone to a certain country didn’t apply because the Defense Department, not DHS, handled the removal to that country.

As she notes:

The Government thus openly flouted two court orders, including the one from which it now seeks relief. Even if the orders in question had been mistaken, the Government had a duty to obey them until they were “‘reversed by orderly and proper proceedings.’” Maness, 419 U. S., at 459 (quoting United States v. Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258, 293 (1947)). That principle is a bedrock of the rule of law. The Government’s misconduct threatens it to its core.

So too does this Court’s decision to grant the Government equitable relief. This is not the first time the Court closes its eyes to noncompliance, nor, I fear, will it be the last. See Trump v. J. G. G., 604 U. S. ___ (2025) (per curiam). Yet each time this Court rewards noncompliance with discretionary relief, it further erodes respect for courts and for the rule of law.

The sum total of the Roberts Court’s legacy is going to be “he completely wrecked any respect for the judiciary and the rule of law by making a mockery of it.” Each lawless move like this just makes and more people see the courts as illegitimate. And that’s doubly embarrassing after all of the effort Judge Murphy went through at the district court to make things work properly, despite a defiant Trump regime.

Emergency Relief For Whom?

And this raises the big question: the Supreme Court’s emergency docket is supposed to be used to put an immediate stop to something where there is imminent harm if they don’t. But here, the Court is doing the opposite. The irreparable, and possibly catastrophic, harms are being allowed to move forward, with no evidence of any real harm to the US. As Sotomayor notes:

In light of the Government’s flagrantly unlawful conduct, today’s decision might suggest the Government faces extraordinary harms. Yet even that is not the case. Rather, following a recent trend, the Court appears to give no serious consideration to the irreparable harm factor. See, e.g., id., at ___ (slip op., at ___); SSA v. AFSCME, 605 U. S. ___ (2025). Without a showing that a stay is necessary to avoid irreparable harm, however, this Court’s midstream intervention is inexcusable.

Besides the facially absurd contention that the Executive is “irreparabl[y]” harmed any time a court orders it temporarily to refrain from doing something it would like to do, see Application for Stay of Injunction 37, the Government has identified no irreparable harm from the challenged preliminary injunction.

The DOJ tried to claim irreparable harm because Judge Murphy told the government it could (voluntarily!) conduct the reasonable fear interviews in Djibouti (where the plane carrying some of the men was forced to land). Yet, as Sotomayor points out, that particular issue wasn’t even appealed by the DOJ and it was an option granted to the government after it requested it as an alternative to bringing the men back to the US (which it should have been forced to do because flying the men to South Sudan violated the existing TRO):

Instead, the Government locates the source of its injury in the District Court’s efforts to provide relief to the class members in South Sudan. Id., at 37–39. That argument is misguided. First, the District Court’s remedial orders are not properly before this Court because the Government has not appealed them, nor sought a stay pending a forthcoming appeal. Second, the court adopted the narrowest possible remedy, allowing the Government itself to choose whether it would return the class members to the United States or provide them with process where they are held. Finally, the Government is in every respect responsible for any resulting harms. Had it complied with the preliminary injunction, no followup orders would have been necessary, nor would the Government have faced a “sudden need . . . to detain criminal aliens” abroad. Id., at 39. It does not face such “need” today, as it can return the noncitizens it wrongfully removed at any time. No litigant, not even the Government, may “satisfy the irreparable harm requirement if the harm complained of is self-inflicted.”

But the plaintiffs in this case clearly face very real and immediate harms:

For their part, the plaintiffs in this case face extraordinary harms from even a temporary grant of relief to the Government. A. A. R. P. v. Trump, 605 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 4) (recognizing detainees’ interests against removal are “particularly weighty”). The Government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone anywhere without notice or an opportunity to be heard. The episodes of noncompliance in this very case illustrate the risks. Thirteen noncitizens narrowly escaped being the target of extraordinary violence in Libya; O. C. G. spent months in hiding in Guatemala; others face release in South Sudan, which the State Department says is in the midst of “‘armed conflict’” between “‘ethnic groups.’” N. 2, supra. Only the District Court’s careful attention to this case prevented worse outcomes. Yet today the Court obstructs those proceedings, exposing thousands to the risk of torture or death.

When put that way, it feels like the kind of thing a Supreme Court is supposed to stop, not reverse a lower court on without explanation.

Sotomayor then points out the pure insanity of this decision:

Given its conduct in these proceedings, the Government’s posture resembles that of the arsonist who calls 911 to report firefighters for violating a local noise ordinance.

The Legal Arguments Are Nonsensical Too

Even worse, she notes, if you get past the procedural stuff, the merits argument by the government is nonsensical as well. She calls out some of it as “absurd.”

Ultimately, the Government says, the plaintiffs in this case object to their removal. So, they should bring their challenges in a petition for review of an order of removal. Yet the Government also claims that it need not issue or reopen any orders of removal before deporting someone to a third country. That is part of the problem plaintiffs seek to remedy: Without an applicable order of removal, they have no way to raise their claims under the Convention. In the end, then, the Government’s view is that the only way to challenge its refusal to provide orders of removal is to appeal those (nonexistent) orders. That is absurd.

Even worse, under the government’s argument, these plaintiffs get no due process rights at all—which would also be a totally absurd scenario:

Even if the Government could establish that its enjoined actions (of providing no notice or process) are integral to the “operation” of §1231(b), that in turn would raise a “‘serious constitutional question.’” Webster v. Doe, 486 U. S. 592, 603 (1988). That is because, as the Government reads it, §1252(f )(1) threatens to nullify plaintiffs’ procedural due process rights entirely. Recall that the Government claims it may remove noncitizens in the space of 15 minutes. See supra, at 4. Such noncitizens cannot practicably file individual lawsuits to vindicate their due process rights. After all, they will not know of the need to file a claim until they are on a bus or plane out of the country. Nor will their counsel, whom the Government refuses to notify. The Government can hardly expect every deportable noncitizen to file a pre-emptive lawsuit. Thus, if §1252(f )(1) precludes classwide vindication of the right to notice and due process under these circumstances, then it effectively nullifies those rights.

It is that kind of lawlessness that the Supreme Court blessed yesterday.

WITHOUT EXPLANATION.

Then there’s the Administrative Procedure Act issue, where Sotomayor again points out that the government’s interpretation of the law effectively wipes out large segments of the statute:

That leaves, finally, the merits of plaintiffs’ underlying APA and due process claims. Begin with the statutory and regulatory scheme governing removal. In the Government’s view, once a noncitizen has been found removable, she can effectively be removed anywhere at any time. That view would render meaningless the countless statutory and regulatory provisions providing for notice and a hearing. See, e.g., 8 U. S. C. §1229(a)(1) (“In removal proceedings under section 1229a . . . written notice . . . shall be given . . . to the alien or to the alien’s counsel of record”); 8 CFR §1240.10(f ) (2024) (in removal hearing, the Immigration Judge “shall . . . identify for the record a country, or countries in the alternative, to which the alien’s removal may be made”); §241.8(e) (when a removal order is reinstated after a noncitizen illegally reenters the country, noncitizen who “expresses a fear of returning to the country designated in that order” must be given an interview (emphasis added)); 8 U. S. C. §§1228(b)(1)–(3) (noncitizens determined removable due to felony conviction must be given notice under §1229(a) and 14 days “to apply for judicial review”); 8 CFR §238.1(b)(2) (requiring notice to noncitizens removable due to felony convictions).

The Government asserts that it need only comply with these provisions once, for the first removal proceeding, and can disregard them afterwards. The consequence of that view is that what happens in removal proceedings simply does not matter. The Government could designate any location in its initial order, lose before the immigration judge, decline to appeal, and promptly thereafter deport the noncitizen to a country of the Government’s choosing. Indeed, that is precisely what happened in O. C. G.’s case.

In other words, the Trump regime is deliberately defying the law:

Where did the Government find the authority to disregard Congress’s carefully calibrated scheme of immigration laws? It does not argue the third-country removal statute provides it. See Application for Stay of Injunction 13. Instead, the Government simply falls back on the Executive’s implied authority in this field. Yet “the President must comply with legislation regulating or restricting the transfer of detainees” even in “wartime.”

But, Sotomayor points out, you can’t just ignore the law like that:

It is a “‘cardinal principle of statutory construction,’” moreover, that statutes should be construed so that “‘no clause, sentence, or word shall be superfluous, void, or insignificant.’” TRW Inc. v. Andrews, 534 U. S. 19, 31 (2001). Here the Government construes the statute’s lack of “a particular process for carrying out” third-country removals, Application for Stay of Injunction 13, as conveying near-unlimited power to the Executive, rendering the remaining statutory scheme “‘void . . . or insignificant.’” TRW, 534 U. S., at 31. To make this claim is to ignore the clear statutory command that notice and a hearing must be provided. See supra, at 15. The Government cannot show a likelihood of success on plaintiffs’ statutory and regulatory claims, nor can it defend the lawfulness of its no-notice removals.

Even if Trump can ignore Congress, Sotomayor wonders how the Supreme Court can possibly bless his regime ignoring the Fifth Amendment’s promise of due process:

Turning to the constitutional claim, this Court has repeatedly affirmed that “ ‘the Fifth Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law’ in the context of removal proceedings.” J. G. G., 604 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 3); A. A. R. P., 605 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 3). Due process includes reasonable notice and an opportunity to be heard. Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306, 314 (1950). Of course the Government cannot avoid its obligation to provide due process “in the context of removal proceedings,” J. G. G., 604 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 3), by skipping such proceedings entirely and simply whisking noncitizens off the street and onto busses or planes out of the country.

[….]

The Government barely disputes these basic principles. Instead, it obfuscates the issue by asserting that some (perhaps “many”) members of the class should be treated as if they never entered the United States. Application for Stay of Injunction 33–34. Yet even if that were true as to some class members, it could show at most that the class might be too broadly defined, not that the Government is likely to succeed on the constitutional merits.

As she concludes, due process is a core component of the rule of law. And here the majority is tossing it in the wood chipper with nary an explanation.

The Due Process Clause represents “the principle that ours is a government of laws, not of men, and that we submit ourselves to rulers only if under rules.” Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 646 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring). By rewarding lawlessness, the Court once again undermines that foundational principle. Apparently, the Court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in farflung locales more palatable than the remote possibility that a District Court exceeded its remedial powers when it ordered the Government to provide notice and process to which the plaintiffs are constitutionally and statutorily entitled. That use of discretion is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable.

Some of the plaintiffs in the case quickly asked Judge Murphy for a new TRO and—interestingly!—he quickly responded that such an order is not necessary because (as Sotomayor noted above) the specific orders regarding the men illegally shipped towards South Sudan, and currently held in Djibouti, was not appealed! This ruling may apply to others, but the current order regarding these men stands:

The Court’s May 21, 2025 Order on Remedy, Dkt. 119, remains in full force and effect, notwithstanding today’s stay of the Preliminary Injunction. DHS v. D.V.D., No. 24A1153, slip op. at 12 (S. Ct. Jun. 23, 2025) (Sotomayor, J., dissenting) (“[T]he District Court’s remedial orders [were] not properly before [the Supreme] Court because the Government has not appealed them, nor sought a stay pending a forthcoming appeal.”).

I imagine the DOJ will challenge that, and tragically the Supreme Court may be on their side.

What This Means Going Forward

The Supreme Court just taught the Trump administration—and every future administration—a valuable lesson: you can ignore court orders with impunity as long as you appeal to the right justices. Why bother following district court rulings when you know the Supreme Court will bail you out without even requiring an explanation?

This isn’t just about immigration. It’s about the fundamental principle that government officials must follow court orders until they’re properly overturned. By rewarding DHS’s blatant defiance, the Court has opened the floodgates. What’s to stop Trump from ignoring the next judge who tries to block his policies? Or the judge after that?

And that shouldn’t take away from the fact that the human cost will be immediate and devastating. Right now, people are sitting in detention centers knowing they could be shipped to Libya, South Sudan, or any other country the administration picks—with no meaningful chance to explain why that might get them killed. Some will disappear into war zones. Others will be sold into slavery. And five or six justices couldn’t be bothered to write a few paragraphs explaining why this is legal.

This decision completes the Roberts Court’s long-term transformation from a judicial body into a partisan enabler of authoritarian rule. Each time they reward lawlessness with their assent, they make clear that the rule of law only applies to those without political connections to the right people.

Judge Murphy tried to do his job. He followed the law, protected constitutional rights, and demanded basic due process. For his efforts, he got a Supreme Court that essentially told him to shut up and get out of the way while the government traffics humans around the globe.

That’s not justice. That’s not law. That’s just power protecting power while people die.

Filed Under: brian murphy, crimes against humanity, deportation, dhs, donald trump, due process, dvd, human trafficking, sonia sotomayor, supreme court