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U.S. appeals court rejects Trump policy allowing swift deportations to third countries

admin — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 23:49:00 +0000

The ruling came in a class-action ‌lawsuit filed by migrants subject to deportation orders that has become a key test ‌of ⁠what due process protections the government must provide before removing people to countries with which ⁠they have no connection. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A U.S. federal appeals court rejected on Friday (September 18, 2026) a policy adopted by President Donald Trump’s administration that allows authorities to ⁠rapidly deport migrants to countries other than their own without giving them a chance to raise safety concerns.

Ruling in a case that is likely headed to the Supreme Court, a three-judge panel of the Boston-based 1st ‌U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld a February decision by a lower-court judge that declared the Department of Homeland Security’s policy unlawful.

“This decision confirms that due process and the protections Congress enacted against persecution and torture cannot be circumvented by putting someone on a plane to a country that was never part of their removal proceedings,” Trina Realmuto, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at ‌the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said

Under Mr. Trump, the administration has entered into a series of agreements that have allowed it to send more than 25,000 migrants to at least 29 third countries, in many cases Mexico, according to Third Country Deportation Watch, a project run by Refugees ‌International and Human Rights First.

The Trump administration is expected to appeal. Earlier in the same case, the administration twice convinced the Supreme Court to lift a preliminary injunction protecting migrants’ due process rights, clearing the way for eight men to be deported to ⁠South Sudan.

DHS had no immediate comment.

Trump’s third country deportations pose risk of abuse and incarceration

Under the third-country deportation program, DHS adopted a policy in March 2025 that would allow migrants to be sent to such countries if immigration authorities have credible diplomatic assurances they ‌will not be persecuted or tortured there.

The policy called for only minimal notice before a migrant could be sent to a third country that had not given the State Department such assurances.

Third country deportations

U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden, set aside the policy and concluded that it failed to protect migrants’ due process rights and could lead to their swift deportation to unfamiliar and potentially dangerous countries, without notice.

On appeal, the Trump administration contended that ‌Judge Murphy’s order if left intact would usurp its authority to execute potentially thousands of valid orders of deportation to third countries.

But U.S. Circuit Judge Seth Aframe, writing for Friday’s panel, said Judge Murphy adopted a “sensible” interpretation of the immigration law requiring migrants be given a “meaningful” chance to raise any ⁠concerns before they are deported.

“DHS’s proposed interpretation would deny access to that protection to a substantial swath ⁠of noncitizens who are sent to third countries with no notice of their destination,” Judge Aframe wrote. “We decline to adopt such an interpretation.”

The panel included two Biden appointees, including ‌Judge Aframe, and a judge appointed by a Republican president.

However, the 1st Circuit overturned one part of Judge Murphy’s ruling on procedural grounds. That part of the ruling concerned whether the government must first try to deport migrants to countries they have ties to before sending them to third countries.

Published – September 19, 2026 05:12 am IST

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Over 100 Venezuelans who were deported from U.S. hours before earthquakes are missing

admin — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 23:35:00 +0000

More than 100 people just deported from the United States were being held in a hotel when earthquakes struck Venezuela, setting off a scramble to find survivors and bodies buried in the rubble, according to survivors.

A deportation flight from Miami arrived in Caracas hours before Wednesday’s earthquakes. On board were 146 Venezuelans, including 19 women and seven children, according to ICE Flight Monitor, an initiative of Human Rights First, which tracks deportation flights.

Lisbeth Portillo, 58, said she escaped the rubble from the hotel with about 20 other deportees who walked the streets looking for help. They saw people running, some naked and others barefoot as they emerged from the rubble of the building in La Guaira, one of the areas that was hardest hit in Wednesday’s 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes.

“We walked about five kilometers, and I cried and cried … there was no communication,” Ms. Portillo said in a phone interview from her home in Maracaibo, Venezuela.

They reached a National Guard building, where they had a chance to call relatives.

“I was born again; God gave me a second chance,” said Portillo. “I am traumatized,” she said after a pause, weeping.

The Venezuelan government says more than 1,700 people were killed.

They survived the earthquake the same day that were deported from the US. Ms. Portillo was caught up in the Trump administration’s drive for mass deportations.

In May, ICE Flight Monitor tracked 288 deportation flights to 38 countries, including Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile and the Ivory Coast.

The U.S. ran 12 deportation flights to Venezuela in May, operating three days a week, according to ICE Flight Monitor. Deportation flights to Venezuela resumed in February 2025 after a 13-month pause.

Ms. Portillo said the government took them to the Hotel Santuario La Llanada, where they underwent medical exams and got identification documents. They were told they would go home the next day.

Ms. Portillo was staying in a second floor room with 16 other women. She stepped onto a balcony to look at the sea and saw that the sky was black; it was very hot. She returned to the room, laid on a bed, and began to feel herself being shaken.

“I started hearing papa, papa papapa,’, and I saw the women next to me start to fall,” she said, describing the sounds from the earthquake. “They were all screaming for help.”

And almost immediately, the second earthquake.

“I fall and end up buried and covered by a beam, but the shaking shifted everything where I was buried and I was able to get out,” said Ms. Portillo, who has bruises all over her body.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to a request for information from the AP.

A video from the Venezuelan government posted on social media showed images of the deportees being received by Venezuelan authorities upon their arrival at the Caracas airport on Wednesday.

Jenny Rodriguez, 24, told the Telemundo network that she was on the flight and taken to the hotel.

Tragic evening: On the earthquake in Venezuela

“I was trapped under the rubble. A colleague who had been on the same flight came by; I managed to free my hand from the debris, grabbed him by the trousers, and begged for help”, she said. “Thanks to God — and to him — I was able to get out of there.”

Liliana Rojas told Telemundo that she has been trying to locate her 33-year-old partner. The detention center where he was held in El Paso, Texas, says only told that he was deported. “No one is giving an answer about anything,” Ms. Rojas said.

Woman says she feels born again’ after surviving

Ms. Portillo, who crossed the U.S. border with Mexico in November 2021 and said had an pending asylum claim, couldn’t remember her children’s phone number. She called her husband in the United States.

“I said to him, Cesar, I’m alive. Help me.’ And my husband kept saying, It can’t be,’” she said. “I’m alive, I made it out of the rubble, I’m alive,’ I told him.”

Her husband called their children, who picked her up and were able to reunite with their mother the following night.

“I was born that day; on the 24th, I was born again,” said Portillo, who lived in South Florida for more than four years.

Published – June 30, 2026 05:05 am IST

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Mexico Ready To Work With US To Receive Deported Citizens: Foreign Ministry

admin — Sat, 25 Jan 2025 04:54:02 +0000

Mexico builds temporary shelters to to prepare for mass deportations from the US. (File)

Mexico City:

Mexico is ready to work with Washington as the administration of President Donald Trump deports Mexican citizens from the United States, the foreign ministry said in a statement Friday.

“We will always accept the arrival of Mexicans to our territory with open arms,” the ministry said, after the White House press secretary posted on X that Mexico on Thursday had accepted a record four deportation flights in one day.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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