SCOTUS Should Stay Judge Murphy's Injunction Because Lower Courts Are Defying Prior Supreme Court Rulings on Deportations
Source: Shawn Fleetwood. "DOJ Asks SCOTUS To Stop Judicial Sabotage Of Deportations." September 25, 2026. thefederalist.com
The Gist
The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court, for the third time, to block a federal judge who keeps finding ways to stop deportations to third countries even after the Supreme Court already ruled against him twice. The author argues this pattern shows the judge is defying the high court, so SCOTUS should step in again to stop him.
Conclusion
The Supreme Court should grant the Trump administration's emergency stay application to halt District Judge Brian Murphy's order blocking third-country deportations, because the lower courts have repeatedly defied and undermined SCOTUS's prior rulings on this exact policy.
Premises
- This is the third time the administration has been forced to seek emergency relief from SCOTUS on this same deportation policy
- SCOTUS already stayed Murphy's original injunction 6-3, but Murphy issued a new directive hours later claiming the stay didn't apply to him
- SCOTUS then had to clarify 7-2 that its ruling did in fact cover Murphy's injunction, with even liberal Justice Kagan rebuking Murphy's noncompliance
- Despite this clarification, Murphy issued a final judgment in February again blocking the deportations
- The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, after initially staying that ruling, reversed course and allowed Murphy's blockade to resume
- The administration argues the latest order rests on the same flawed legal premises as previous rulings, with the new justifications being even weaker
- The equities favoring the government's enforcement of the policy have only grown stronger over time
Assumptions
- A single district judge's repeated defiance of Supreme Court rulings constitutes a legitimate emergency warranting further high court intervention
- The government's characterization of the legal weakness of Murphy's rulings is accurate
- The Supreme Court's prior stays were correctly decided and should be extended rather than reconsidered
- Judicial resistance to executive deportation policy is properly characterized as 'sabotage' or 'insubordination' rather than legitimate judicial review
- The equities in favor of deportation enforcement outweigh any harms to the aliens being deported to third countries