Two dozen independent UN human rights experts are warning that the Trump administration's policy of deporting thousands of migrants to third countries has triggered a cascade of human rights violations, exposing vulnerable individuals to risks of torture, trafficking, and violence. While the administration has petitioned the Supreme Court to emergency-revive the program after lower courts struck it down, federal judges have also found the government in contempt for carrying out wrongful deportations.
UN experts call for halt to policy
- ▪UN experts warned that deporting migrants to unfamiliar countries increases their risk of experiencing torture, ill-treatment, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, human trafficking, and modern slavery.
- ▪On September 28, 2026, twenty-four independent UN human rights experts called for an immediate halt to the United States third-country deportation policy adopted in March 2025, warning it triggers a cascade of human rights violations
- ▪The UN human rights experts sent official communications expressing concern to the United States government and to the 35 countries that entered into agreements to accept individuals deported under the third-country deportation policy
Overview of the third-country deportation policy
- ▪The United States government has offered millions of dollars to foreign governments and struck agreements with 35 nations to accept deported migrants who have no ties to those receiving countries.
- ▪At least 23,000 third-country nationals have been deported from the United States under the third-country policy, with some estimates from Forbidden Stories placing the figure above 25,000 by the end of August 2026.
- ▪The Trump administration's third-country deportation policy, adopted in March 2025, allows immigration officials to deport foreign nationals in as little as six hours to countries not named in their removal orders.
Treatment of deported migrants
- ▪Human rights advocates highlighted severe abuses under the US third-country deportation policy, including two men deported to Equatorial Guinea who were bound, hooded, beaten, and pushed down stairs, and police pulling firearms on deportees
- ▪Many individuals deported under the third-country arrangements had previously won protection from United States judges who ruled they could face abuses if repatriated.
Supreme Court litigation over the policy
- ▪Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson directed the respondents in the Supreme Court case to file their response to the Trump administration's stay application by 4 p.m. on September 28, 2026.
- ▪The U.S. Department of Justice petitioned the Supreme Court on September 24, 2026, to block a First Circuit ruling and revive the third-country deportation program.
- ▪U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer requested that Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson refer the administration's stay application to the full court if she declines to freeze the lower court's order.
Contempt ruling against the Trump administration
- ▪U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher found the Trump administration in contempt of court on September 25, 2026, for wrongfully deporting a young Salvadoran asylum seeker twice in violation of three separate court orders.
- ▪Judge Stephanie Gallagher ordered the Trump administration in September 2026 to return the Salvadoran asylum seeker, referred to as E.L.A., to the United States and fully adjudicate his asylum application before attempting to remove him again
Debatable claims
- ▪The Supreme Court should revive the Trump administration's third-country deportation program
- ▪The Trump administration's third-country deportation policy violates international human rights
- ▪Diplomatic assurances from third countries are sufficient to protect deported migrants from persecution
- ▪Paying third countries to accept deported migrants is an acceptable way to manage immigration
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