First Circuit Affirms D.V.D. Judgment: DHS Third-Country Removals Require Notice and Chance to Raise Fear Claims

On September 18, 2026, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit — Judges Montecalvo, Howard, and Aframe, opinion by Judge Aframe, no dissent — largely affirmed Judge Brian E. Murphy’s final judgment in D.V.D. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, No. 26-1212. The class consists of noncitizens with final removal orders who, under DHS guidance issued in March and July 2025, faced removal to countries neither designated in their orders nor identified during their proceedings. The court held the guidance unlawful because it permitted such removals without effective notice of the destination and a meaningful opportunity to raise claims of persecution or torture there, and it upheld vacatur of the guidance. As CBS quoted the opinion: a right to contest removal on fear grounds “means little if one does not receive prior notice of the intended removal destination and a meaningful opportunity to contest that destination.”

The panel narrowed the judgment on one point. It vacated, on Article III standing grounds, the two declarations concerning DHS’s statutory obligation to first seek removal to a class member’s designated country or country of nationality before turning to a third country — the “sequencing” claim — and “otherwise affirm[ed] the final judgment.” It also declined to decide whether the judgment requires an evidentiary hearing before a third-country removal, calling that question “neither ripe nor fully joined” and leaving it to the district court. Capture-stage framing of a required “fear hearing” overstates the holding; the holding is notice plus a meaningful opportunity to contest.

This closes the loop on a case canon has tracked from its emergency-docket reversal. The Supreme Court stayed Murphy’s preliminary injunction in June 2025 (2025-06-23–scotus-enables-third-country-deportations-dvd), allowing the program to run while the merits proceeded; Murphy then entered final judgment against the policy (2026-02-25–judge-murphy-third-country-deportation-policy-unlawful). In between, the program operated at scale — CBS reports more than 25,000 people removed to third countries under this administration, about 80% to Mexico — under an agency whose director said he had not known some destination countries existed (2026-05-05–ice-director-lyons-admits-didnt-know-deportation-countries-existed-third-country-program). The merits win arrives after the removals it governs.

Notice is also what the government is withdrawing elsewhere. Three days before the ruling, ICE stopped listing final-order detainees in its public locator (2026-09-15–ice-removes-final-order-detainees-from-public-locator-including-guantanamo-eight) — the same population this class covers. A notice right is only as usable as counsel’s ability to find the client.

Open: whether DHS seeks rehearing en banc or certiorari, or issues revised guidance with a compliant notice procedure; how the district court resolves the evidentiary-hearing question.