A federal judge delivered a significant blow to the Trump administration’s deportation machinery yesterday, blocking the expansion of expedited removal procedures that would have allowed immigration agents to quickly deport migrants detained in the interior without hearings. CBS News. Yet even as Judge Jia Cobb’s ruling temporarily shields some immigrants from rapid deportation, thousands of others—including those granted protection under the Convention Against Torture—remain vulnerable to an increasingly sophisticated circumvention strategy: removal to third countries that never appeared in their original deportation orders.
The juxtaposition couldn’t be starker. While constitutional protections still matter in some courtrooms, ICE’s February 18, 2025 directive explicitly encourages officers to consider “the viability of removal to a third country” when CAT-protected individuals report for routine check-ins. The directive treats withholding of removal and CAT protection as merely “country-specific” barriers—technicalities to be worked around rather than humanitarian safeguards to be respected.
The Machinery Accelerates
Immigration attorneys across the country report a marked shift in enforcement tactics since the directive’s release. When individuals granted withholding or CAT protection arrive for mandatory check-ins—appointments they’ve attended without incident for years—officers now assess whether they should be re-detained and removed to a third country. The threat isn’t theoretical. By June 2025, the Supreme Court had already ruled that the administration could resume expedited deportations to countries that are not migrants’ places of origin, including South Sudan and various African nations.
The numbers tell only part of the story. Since Trump’s return to office, more than 600 deportation flights have been conducted, with nearly 60 countries asked or planned to be asked to accept U.S. deportees who are not their citizens. But behind each flight manifest lies a more troubling reality: the systematic erosion of protections once considered inviolable.
Consider the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose saga encapsulates the administration’s approach. An immigration judge ruled in 2019 that he may not be deported to El Salvador because he feared persecution by local gangs. That protection meant nothing when ICE wrongfully deported him there anyway in March. After international outcry and his return to the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security announced he was “being processed for removal to Uganda”—a country with which he has no connection whatsoever. National Immigration Litigation Alliance.
Uganda’s Devil’s Bargain
The East African nation’s agreement to accept deportees reveals the transactional nature of these arrangements. Ugandan officials said the country had agreed to a “temporary arrangement” with the U.S. to accept deportees, with conditions that “individuals with criminal records and unaccompanied minors will not be accepted”. The government also stated it “prefers” to receive individuals from other African countries.
But why would Uganda agree to this? Opposition figures suggest the deal serves as “political and perhaps economic” leverage for President Yoweri Museveni’s government, potentially easing sanctions pressure and opening trade opportunities. The arrangement makes sense only as a matter of “economic expediency,” according to Ugandans critical of the deal, which bypassed parliamentary oversight entirely.
The human cost of these diplomatic transactions remains deliberately obscured. Professor Kristof Titeca of Antwerp University notes that when Uganda previously accepted failed asylum seekers deported from Israel in 2018, they were “left to their own devices” after a few nights in a Kampala hotel, with many ultimately fleeing to Europe.
Legal Battleground Shifts
The National Immigration Litigation Alliance responded to the crisis with unprecedented urgency. On January 30, 2025, in partnership with the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project and Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, they issued a practice advisory addressing limits on the government’s authority to deport noncitizens to third countries. The advisory includes emergency motion templates and strategic guidance for attorneys scrambling to protect clients from removal to countries where they’ve never lived.
Yet the Supreme Court has already signaled its stance. On Monday [June 23, 2025], the Court blocked a lower court order that required 15 days notice to individuals the Trump administration is trying to deport to countries other than their own. The unsigned order means people can receive notification the night before their flight, as happened with men set to be deported to South Sudan.
The D.V.D. v. DHS litigation represents the most comprehensive challenge to the third-country removal strategy. Filed on March 23, 2025, the case seeks class certification for all individuals facing removal to countries not designated by an immigration judge. But while lawyers file briefs, planes keep departing. Deportation or Rendition? How the U.S. Normalized Extrajudicial Rendition in Immigration Enforcement. – CandidViews
Iranian Nationals: Silent Crisis
For Iranians with CAT protection, the threat carries particular weight. Unable to return to Iran, where they face torture or death, yet unwelcome in the United States despite legal protections, they exist in a precarious limbo now made more dangerous. The administration hasn’t publicly targeted Iranians for third-country removal—yet. But the infrastructure is in place, the precedents are being set, and the diplomatic agreements are being signed.
Immigration attorneys report that Iranian clients increasingly express anxiety about check-ins, fearing they’ll be detained and shipped to Uganda, Rwanda, or another nation willing to accept American dollars in exchange for human beings. The fear isn’t paranoia—it’s pattern recognition.
Strategic Resistance
Practitioners fighting these removals face an uphill battle but aren’t without tools. Emergency habeas petitions filed immediately upon detention can preserve jurisdiction before clients are transferred to remote facilities. Articulating specific fears of persecution in proposed third countries—backed by country condition evidence—may trigger additional procedural protections.
The timing matters. Filing protective motions before scheduled check-ins, rather than after detention, provides a stronger procedural footing. Attorneys recommend preparing comprehensive safety plans: powers of attorney for property and children, copies of vital documents, and emergency contact trees activated the moment someone doesn’t return from ICE.
Some circuits have proven more receptive to chain refoulement arguments—the legal principle that prohibits sending someone to a third country that might return them to torture. The Ninth Circuit has particularly shown a willingness to scrutinize whether proposed third countries genuinely offer safety or merely serve as waystations to persecution.
Tomorrow’s Precedents
Judge Cobb’s ruling yesterday, blocking the expansion of expedited removal, offers a glimmer of hope. Unlike migrants detained at or near the border, she wrote, people targeted by the expansion “have long since entered” the country and “have a weighty liberty interest in remaining here and therefore must be afforded due process under the Fifth Amendment”.
But the administration shows no signs of retreating. ICE’s detention budget received a 265% boost, expanding daily bed capacity to a projected 116,000. The agency has the resources, the diplomatic agreements, and now the Supreme Court’s blessing to continue.
The question isn’t whether more CAT recipients will face third-country removal—it’s how many and how fast. With internal ICE statistics showing less than 10% of immigrants in custody since October 2024 had criminal offenses, the focus has clearly shifted from public safety to pure numbers.
As summer ends and the deportation apparatus continues its acceleration, one truth becomes clear: the Convention Against Torture’s promise of protection has become contingent on geography. You’re protected from being sent to the country that would torture you. But Uganda? Rwanda? El Salvador? Those weren’t mentioned in your immigration judge’s order.
And in the gap between legal protection and practical reality, lives hang in the balance—one check-in at a time.
For urgent assistance with CAT protection or third-country removal threats, contact the National Immigration Litigation Alliance emergency hotline or your local immigration legal services provider. Time-sensitive filings may be necessary to preserve rights.
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