Ten cases, in eleven decisions between August 2025 and March 2026, addressed whether third-country removal is being used as punishment. Six found that it is. Five declined to find it. No court rejected the principle. This section sets out all of them, including the refusals, and what separates them.
| Decision | Date | Punitive claim | What decided it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nguyen v. Scott | 21 Aug 2025 | Found | Declarations on South Sudan and Eswatini, and official statements |
| Baltodano v. Bondi (first) | 7 Nov 2025 | Refused | Record lacked the specificity present in Nguyen |
| Abubaka v. Bondi | 17 Nov 2025 | Found | Same population, same destinations |
| Hambarsonpour v. Bondi | 21 Nov 2025 | Found | Adopted Abubaka, widened to imprisonment or harm |
| Baltodano v. Bondi (second) | 4 Dec 2025 | Found | Granted once the missing evidence was supplied |
| Elshourbagy v. Bondi | 23 Dec 2025 | Refused | Not tied to a named population or destination |
| Van Nguyen v. Bondi | 3 Feb 2026 | Found | Government offered no substantive response |
| Rea-Hernandez v. Bondi | 6 Feb 2026 | Refused | Allegations unsubstantiated, though not denied |
| Vashchuk v. Bondi | 11 Feb 2026 | Refused | No criminal record, destinations were in northern Europe |
| Saadhom v. Bondi | 12 Mar 2026 | Refused | Relied on evidence about a different population |
| Pham v. Warden | 26 Mar 2026 | Found | Allegations undenied, admitted under Rule 8(b)(6) |
What separates them is evidence, not doctrine
No court in this line has held that a third-country removal cannot be punitive. Several of the courts that refused relief said the opposite. One recorded that “there is extensive evidence across multiple cases that the government is carrying out some third-country removals that are unconstitutionally punitive,” and refused anyway, because the law of permanent injunctions did not let it infer from those cases that the petitioner before it faced the same harm. Another recorded that the petitioner had not substantiated his allegations, that the government had not denied them, and that courts in her district and across the country had recognised that the government is intentionally removing people to countries where they will be imprisoned.
The refusals turn on the same sentence, quoted in three of them: the cases finding the practice punitive were “specific to a particular population and particular destination countries” and do not extend to circumstances a petitioner has not connected himself to.
The clearest demonstration is a single case decided twice
On 7 November 2025 a federal judge refused the punitive claim, holding that the record before him lacked the specificity and examples regarding third-country imprisonment that were present in Nguyen v. Scott. On 4 December 2025, on a fuller record, the same judge granted it. Nothing in the law had changed in twenty-seven days. The evidence had.
What the Coalition takes from this, in its own voice
That the country record is the missing piece. Where a court has been shown what happens to people on arrival in a named country, it has acted. Where it has not, it has said so and declined. The Coalition’s country guides exist to put that record in one place, sourced and checkable, so that it is available to anyone who needs it.
One caution about where this line begins
The punitive analysis in these cases originates in Nguyen v. Scott, decided at the preliminary injunction stage on 21 August 2025. That case was voluntarily dismissed by its petitioner the following month after an agreement between the parties, and so never reached a merits decision. That does not make its findings wrong, and five courts have since adopted them on their own records. But anyone relying on this line should know where it begins.
Sources for this page
Every decision listed above appears in the register of court decisions, each with its court, date, docket number, citation, judge, disposition, holding, a caution recording what the decision does not establish, and a link to the record.