deportations

The rulings allow the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status for nationals of the two countries.

Two federal judges have cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s administration to end temporary protections from deportation for people who have come to the United States from South Sudan and Myanmar.

Judges in Boston, Massachusetts and Chicago, Illinois on Friday rejected last-ditch efforts by immigrant-rights advocates to maintain the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations for the two countries after the US Supreme Court in June allowed the administration to end similar protections for thousands of people from Haiti and Syria.

TPS shields people from deportation and grants work authorisation when their home countries are affected by armed conflict, natural disasters or other extraordinary conditions. The terminations would end protections for about 232 South Sudanese nationals and roughly 4,000 people from Myanmar, according to the Reuters news agency.

The Supreme Court decision had limited lower courts’ ability to block the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) efforts to end TPS for people from roughly a dozen countries, arguing the executive branch maintained broad authority to make decisions on the programme.

After the Supreme Court’s ruling, immigrant-rights lawyers made a new challenge, arguing that DHS lacked the authority to terminate TPS.

But US District Judge Patti Saris in Boston rejected the argument, saying it would not only call into question DHS authority to end TPS but also its longstanding authority to extend the protections.

Judge Matthew Kennelly in Chicago made a similar conclusion in the Myanmar case hours later.

Advocates have warned the rulings leave TPS recipients, who had been given an “administrative stay” amid the ongoing legal battle that allowed them to continue to work and live in the US, exposed to possible deportation to countries still gripped by conflict and instability.

DHS had moved in November 2025 to end TPS for South Sudan, which has held the designation since 2011 amid ongoing conflict, and Myanmar, in political turmoil since a 2021 military coup.

James Percival, General Counsel of DHS, said the new rulings leave only TPS terminations for Ethiopian and Somalian nationals, which are still blocked by courts.

“Every day these ‘administrative stays’ are in effect is a day the American people are denied what they voted for,” he wrote on X.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has filed a first-ever petition to a secretive and dormant court created 30 years ago to consider government requests to deport “alien terrorists” from the United States.

The Alien Terrorist Removal Court was established in 1996 but had never received a petition until Wednesday, when the Justice Department filed an application seeking the removal of an individual whose name is withheld from the single-page document posted on the court’s website.

The chief judge of the five-member court, Joan Ericksen, said in a written response to the petition that a hearing was held Thursday during which the court had “questions about the nexus that the government alleges between the actions of the respondent and the specific sections and subsections it invokes with respect to those actions.”

“The answers persuaded the Court that the Government could benefit from the opportunity for more thoughtful consideration,” wrote Ericksen, a federal judge in Minnesota.

She directed the Justice Department to provide more information by Wednesday.

The court’s authorities emerged from the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which permits the attorney general to file under seal applications for the deportation of a suspected “alien terrorist.” If an application is granted, the court must hold a public hearing at which the government has the burden to prove that the individual satisfies that definition. Applications must be approved by the attorney general or deputy attorney general.

Federal law says that an individual could qualify as an “alien terrorist” by, among other factors, having “engaged in a terrorist activity,” endorsing or espousing terrorist activities and by belonging to a political or social group that encourages terrorist activity.

The court has been dormant since its creation, having received — until last week — no applications and conducting no hearings, according to a summary posted on the Federal Judicial Center website. It comprises five judges selected by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

The Trump administration has moved aggressively over the last year to carry out deportations, including invoking a 1798 wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to remove Venezuelan migrants who officials accuse of being part of a terrorist gang. During a hearing in that case last year, the Washington judge presiding over it, James Boasberg, indicated that the Alien Terrorist Removal Court would be the natural forum to consider a request for deportation on national security grounds.

“In fact, Congress has an answer for us, doesn’t it? Because they created the Alien Terrorist Removal Court,” he said. “So if there’s a national security concern with having these hearings … you can always go to the ATRC, which would be a first, but that’s what it’s there for, right?”

The petition was first reported by Court Watch, an independent news site.

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to resume carrying out speedy deportations of undocumented migrants throughout the United States, not just near the border.

A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out a lower court ruling that temporarily blocked President Trump’s expanded use of expedited removal. The ruling was a big victory for the Republican administration, which views the expansion of so-called expedited removal as a key tool for carrying out its mass deportation policy.

An attorney for the plaintiffs said the ruling “undermines the fundamental principle that people receive due process when the government seeks to deport them.”

“The Trump administration’s push for fast-track deportations will subject people to an unfair and error-prone system,” Anand Balakrishnan, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement.

Trump appointed the two judges in the majority in Tuesday’s decision. The third was appointed by President Obama, a Democrat.

The plaintiffs had not “shown that the expedited-removal process denies its members notice and an opportunity to be heard,” Judge Justin R. Walker, one of the Trump appointees, wrote.

Expedited removal — quick deportation without a chance to appear before a judge — has previously been applied to migrants arriving by sea or caught at or near the border shortly after crossing.

In January, Trump expanded its use to undocumented migrants all over the U.S. Immigration agents began whisking migrants away from courthouses where they had gone for immigration proceedings and then removing them from the country within days.

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb ruled in August that plaintiffs challenging the expansion had made a “strong showing” that it was trampling on people’s due-process rights, and she issued a stay order putting the policy on hold. Cobb was appointed to the federal bench by President Biden, a Democrat.

Many migrants living deep in the U.S. have been in the country for more than two years, making them ineligible for expedited removal under federal law. Cobb said the administration had not developed procedures to ensure they and other groups of migrants were not wrongly deported under the expedited process.

The plaintiffs had put forward “substantial evidence” that the expedited removal process, on the contrary, carried a high risk of error when applied more broadly, Cobb said. The ruling cited examples of people who had lived in the U.S. for far longer than two years but were still ordered to be removed in expedited proceedings.

The Trump administration appealed, arguing in a court filing that its expansion was legal, and protections were in place to prevent arbitrary removal.

Cobb’s ruling was an “egregious error” that was depriving the administration of an “essential tool to combat the unprecedented surge of illegal immigration over the past few years” and efficiently deport potentially millions of people, Justice Department attorneys argued in the October filing.

Thanawala writes for the Associated Press.