Washington – It was a day when power triumphed over the law. On June 23, 2025, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled by a six-to-three vote that the Trump administration may once again deport migrants to so-called third countries – nations that are neither the country of origin nor destination, but rather geopolitical waystations along the path of fleeing war, misery, and persecution. Places like Djibouti, Honduras, or Georgia – where no family awaits, no protection is offered, and no reliable legal process is guaranteed.
The ruling overturned a preliminary injunction issued by the U.S. District Court in Boston. In April (Case No. 1:25-cv-1234), Judge Brian Murphy had ruled that deportations to third countries were only permissible if individuals were first given a genuine opportunity to challenge the decision legally and present evidence. That legal safeguard has now been obliterated by the Court’s conservative majority. Chief Justice John Roberts and his five conservative colleagues – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett – refused to provide any written justification. Not a sentence, not a paragraph, not a single line of legal reasoning. This deliberate silence is not merely a display of institutional arrogance – it is the ultimate admission of a court now firmly in the hands of fanatical MAGA hardliners. Such a “ruling,” handed down without any discernible legal argument, lacks all legitimacy under the rule of law. It does not deserve to be called a judgment – it is, rather, a regime dispatch, a dictated execution order from the engine room of power. Those who adjudicate in this manner do not deliver justice – they execute. And those who remain silent do so not out of humility before the law, but out of contempt for its spirit. It must be said plainly: with this act, the majority of the Court has become the execution tribunal of Trumpism. This institutional self-denial – the deliberate substitution of silence for legal responsibility – is a political act clothed in judicial restraint, and therefore an assault on the very foundations of the separation of powers.
And yet, the dissent was delivered with force: Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, issued a 19-page dissenting opinion in which she described the ruling as “a gross abuse of judicial authority.” Deporting migrants to countries where they face the threat of torture, persecution, or death, she wrote, violates not only fundamental moral principles – but also the Constitution. She warned that this decision places migrants at risk of “torture or death.” The ruling, she said, marked a regression into policies devoid of both humanity and legal standards. The case involved eight migrants – including individuals from Cuba, Myanmar, Laos, Mexico, Vietnam, and South Sudan – who, according to the lawsuit, were deported to a U.S. military base in Djibouti near the South Sudanese border. Six of them had prior convictions, which the Trump administration classified as national security risks. Yet Judge Murphy had clearly stated that even in such cases, a minimum threshold of legal protection must apply. The plaintiffs had no realistic opportunity to credibly demonstrate the danger of violence or persecution in the third countries.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) hailed the decision as “a victory for the safety of the American people.” Human rights organizations, on the other hand, warned of a dangerous precedent. Amnesty International declared that the ruling legitimizes the practice of sending asylum seekers to unstable regions with no option to return – a breach of international conventions. The appeals process at the First Circuit Court of Appeals has been effectively suspended by the Supreme Court’s vote. Legally, the case remains open – but politically, it has sent a devastating message: under Trump, the United States is ignoring not only international law but also the domestic safeguards that once, at least formally, existed. With this decision, the Supreme Court has cleared the path for a policy of deportation at any cost – even if that cost is measured in human lives.
English 
German 
