The First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston temporarily cleared the way for the Biden administration to resume a March 2025 Department of Homeland Security policy allowing rapid deportations to willing third countries, pausing a February 25 district court ruling that had set the policy aside and putting the case on an expedited appellate track toward oral argument in mid-April.

The Boston-based appeals panel issued a 2-1 order on Monday that lifts the lower court block which had stalled the policy for weeks. That pause means the administration can renew rapid removals while the First Circuit considers the merits after expedited briefing ends.

The policy, adopted in March 2025, lets DHS remove noncitizens to any country willing to accept them rather than only their country of origin. Under the rule, authorities either secure credible diplomatic assurances that the deportee will not be persecuted or tortured, or provide as little as six hours’ notice before removal.

U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, a Biden appointee, found the policy did not protect migrants’ due process rights and issued a preliminary injunction in April after declaring that those facing removal had “a right to meaningful notice and a chance to raise objections.” The Supreme Court has already stepped in twice, lifting Murphy’s earlier injunction and later allowing eight men to be sent to South Sudan.

The administration argued in the First Circuit that Murphy’s order was causing concrete operational harm to immigration enforcement. Justice Department lawyers told the court bluntly in filings that “The district court’s order creates an unworkable scheme that materially impairs the ability of the government to enforce the immigration laws.”

DHS echoed that point, saying the department “must be allowed to execute its lawful authority and remove illegal aliens to a country willing to accept them.” The administration frames the policy as a legal exercise of congressional authority that the Supreme Court has declined to obstruct in prior temporary rulings.

The panel that granted the stay was bipartisan: Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Jeffrey R. Howard, a George W. Bush appointee, and U.S. Circuit Judge Seth Aframe, a Biden appointee, signed the order. U.S. Circuit Judge Lara Montecalvo, also appointed by President Biden, dissented and would have denied the stay request.

The split shows that federal judges are not operating as a single ideological bloc on this question, even when the dispute centers on a politically charged enforcement tool. Still, the pattern of a district judge blocking a policy and a higher court restoring it has repeated across this administration’s major immigration moves.

That playbook typically unfolds the same way: the executive acts within its statutory authority, an advocacy group files a class-action suit, a sympathetic district judge issues a sweeping injunction, and the government spends weeks or months appealing. The result is policy whipsawed in the courts while enforcement pauses and leverage with cooperating countries erodes.

Advocates for the plaintiffs argue the pause threatens migrants’ statutory and constitutional protections; a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the National Immigration Litigation Alliance described the stay as a setback but welcomed a quick merits resolution. “While the order unfortunately delays the restoration of our class members’ statutory and due process rights, we are glad that the 1st Circuit ordered a swift resolution of the merits of the case.”

From a conservative enforcement perspective, the plaintiffs seek not a constitutional rule but an indefinite delay packaged as due process. The federal government has long exercised the power to remove noncitizens to willing third countries, and the Supreme Court’s prior interventions signaled that the policy can operate while legal challenges proceed.

With expedited briefing set to finish by mid-April, the First Circuit will move quickly to decide whether Judge Murphy’s sweeping invalidation can survive appellate review. The stakes are operational: every week a deportation policy sits frozen, more individuals who could be removed remain in the country and diplomatic options narrow.

For now, the appellate panel’s stay restores the administration’s ability to carry out removals under the third-country framework while the courts sort the legal questions. The immediate clash was between a district judge who felt compelled to block the rule and an appellate panel that pushed the policy back into effect pending a full review.