The Supreme Court is preparing to decide a major challenge to the Trump administration’s use of “third-country” deportations, a practice that allows the government to remove some migrants to countries other than their own. 60 Minutes reported that migrants deported by the United States to Ghana were subsequently transferred to countries to which U.S. immigration judges had previously ruled they should not be returned. The program covered Moussa Diawara, a Malian national who had lived in the United States for approximately 25 years and had been granted withholding of removal to Mali. Instead, U.S. authorities deported him to Ghana, where he said officials placed him on a flight to Mali within five days.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wrote in a post on X that Ghana had provided the United States with “diplomatic assurances for his safety” and questioned the credibility of Diawara’s fears of persecution. James Percival, the agency's top lawyer, said third-country removals can be used when a migrant’s home country refuses to accept them or when an immigration judge has barred their return to that country. The wider case comes before the Supreme Court as the justices consider the legal limits of the administration’s broader third-country removal policy.
The high court has allowed the policy to remain in effect while the litigation proceeds, but it has not ruled that the policy itself is lawful. The case, Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D., concerns people with final removal orders who face deportation to countries that were neither designated in their removal orders nor previously identified in writing as potential destinations.
Federal immigration law sets out a sequence for where people with final removal orders may be sent, including, depending on the circumstances, a country they designate, a country of citizenship or nationality, or a country where they previously lived. If those options are unavailable, the law provides additional destinations, including a country whose government will accept the person. Separate federal protections prohibit removal when the applicable legal standard for persecution or torture has been met.
Under DHS guidance issued in March 2025, officials first determine whether the proposed receiving country has provided assurances that people removed from the United States will not be persecuted or tortured. If the State Department considers those assurances credible, DHS guidance permits removal without further procedures. Without such credible assurances, DHS informs the migrant of the destination.
Officers do not affirmatively ask whether the person is afraid of being sent there. A migrant who independently expresses fear is referred to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for screening.
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