Federal appeals court deals blow to Trump deportation agenda

A Peruvian migrant in federal custody was reportedly headed to Ghana, of all places, when a court stopped the plane. That detail matters. Ghana is not Peru, and that was the whole idea behind the Trump administration's third-party country deportation policy: if a migrant's home country won't cooperate, send them somewhere that will. The First Circuit just ruled that this approach is illegal. So now the government is back to square one, and a removal that was actually happening has been turned into another legal fight.

This is creative enforcement of laws Congress actually wrote. The plain reading of deportation law says people who are ordered removed should be removed. Instead, three judges decided the statute is too narrow for common sense. It is hard to watch a policy die because of a technicality while the people it was designed to remove remain in the United States. The left will call this a victory for human rights. In reality, it's a victory for legal delays.

The court chose paperwork over public safety. Every court-imposed hurdle gives illegal aliens more time, more appeals, and more chances to disappear into the country. The administration was trying to use every tool available to enforce the border. These judges just took one of those tools away.

We expect the government to appeal this decision, and Congress should make the law explicit if it has to. But this ruling is a reminder that the biggest obstacle to border enforcement is often not the cartels. It's the judiciary. The migrant in question was going to be removed to a willing country, and a court stopped it. That is not justice. That is a roadblock..