In a scathing dissent, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor accused the high court’s conservative majority of enabling the Trump administration’s “flagrantly unlawful conduct” by allowing it to resume controversial deportations without notice to the people affected.
The court on Monday granted the Trump administration’s emergency request to stay a lower court’s injunction that had blocked so-called “third-country” deportations—removals that send migrants to nations where they have no ties and where, in some cases, they face grave danger. The 5–4 decision, backed by the court’s conservative wing, allowed the administration to continue deportations while the case proceeds.
Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, delivered a blistering rebuke of the decision, warning that it undermines the rule of law and puts lives at risk.
“I cannot join so gross an abuse of the Court’s equitable discretion,” Sotomayor wrote, blasting the decision as a reward for the government’s repeated defiance of judicial orders. “Each time this Court rewards noncompliance with discretionary relief, it further erodes respect for courts and for the rule of law.”
At the heart of the legal battle is the Trump administration’s attempt to deport migrants to countries like Libya and South Sudan—nations torn by conflict and political instability—without giving them a chance to explain why such deportations could be life-threatening.
In April, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy issued an injunction to block these deportations, calling them a violation of basic rights. “Defendants argue that the United States may send a deportable alien to a country not of their origin, not where an immigration judge has ordered, where they may be immediately tortured and killed, without providing that person any opportunity to tell the deporting authorities that they face grave danger or death,” Murphy wrote.
Despite this, the Trump administration pressed forward and sought relief from the Supreme Court. Sotomayor noted the government had “openly flouted” not just one but two court orders, deporting individuals without notice in what she called a serious breach of legal process.
She characterized the administration’s actions as an affront to constitutional and statutory protections, calling its conduct “misconduct that strikes at the core of our legal system.”
In one of the most stinging lines of her dissent, Sotomayor likened the administration to “an arsonist who calls 911 to report firefighters for violating a local noise ordinance,” accusing the Supreme Court of turning a blind eye to lawbreaking.
“This is not the first time the Court closes its eyes to noncompliance,” she warned. “Nor, I fear, will it be the last.”
The decision to lift the injunction, Sotomayor wrote, leaves “thousands exposed to the risk of torture or death,” calling the Court’s logic “incomprehensible” and “inexcusable.”
In closing, she dissented “respectfully, but regretfully,” denouncing what she saw as the Court prioritizing executive convenience over human life and legal accountability.
