The Supreme Court on Thurs­day cleared the way for the de­por­ta­tion of sev­er­al im­mi­grants who were put on a flight in May bound for South Su­dan, a war-rav­aged coun­try where they have no ties.

The de­ci­sion comes af­ter the court’s con­ser­v­a­tive ma­jor­i­ty found that im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials can quick­ly de­port peo­ple to third coun­tries. The ma­jor­i­ty halt­ed an or­der that had al­lowed im­mi­grants to chal­lenge any re­movals to coun­tries out­side their home­land where they could be in dan­ger.

The court’s lat­est or­der makes clear that the South Su­dan flight can com­plete the trip, weeks af­ter it was de­toured to a naval base in Dji­bouti where the mi­grants were held in a con­vert­ed ship­ping con­tain­er. It re­vers­es find­ings from fed­er­al Judge Bri­an Mur­phy in Mass­a­chu­setts, who said his or­der on those mi­grants still stands even af­ter the high court lift­ed his broad­er de­ci­sion.

The ma­jor­i­ty wrote that their de­ci­sion on June 23 com­plete­ly halt­ed Mur­phy’s rul­ing and al­so ren­dered his de­ci­sion on the South Su­dan flight “un­en­force­able.” The court did not ful­ly de­tail its le­gal rea­son­ing on the un­der­ly­ing case, as is com­mon on its emer­gency dock­et.

Two lib­er­al jus­tices, So­nia So­tomay­or and Ke­tan­ji Brown Jack­son, dis­sent­ed, say­ing the rul­ing gives the gov­ern­ment spe­cial treat­ment. “Oth­er lit­i­gants must fol­low the rules, but the ad­min­is­tra­tion has the Supreme Court on speed di­al,” So­tomay­or wrote. Jus­tice Ele­na Ka­gan wrote that while she dis­agreed with the orig­i­nal or­der, it does coun­ter­mand Mur­phy’s find­ings on the South Su­dan flight.

At­tor­neys for the eight mi­grants have said they could face “im­pris­on­ment, tor­ture and even death” if sent to South Su­dan, where es­ca­lat­ing po­lit­i­cal ten­sions have threat­ened to de­volve in­to an­oth­er civ­il war.

“We know they’ll face per­ilous con­di­tions, and po­ten­tial­ly im­me­di­ate de­ten­tion, up­on ar­rival,” Tri­na Real­mu­to, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Im­mi­gra­tion Lit­i­ga­tion Al­liance, said Thurs­day.

The push comes amid a sweep­ing im­mi­gra­tion crack­down by Trump’s Re­pub­li­can ad­min­is­tra­tion, which has pledged to de­port mil­lions of peo­ple who are liv­ing in the Unit­ed States il­le­gal­ly. The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has called Mur­phy’s find­ing “a law­less act of de­fi­ance.”

The White House and De­part­ment of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond to mes­sages seek­ing com­ment.

Au­thor­i­ties have reached agree­ments with oth­er coun­tries to house im­mi­grants if au­thor­i­ties can’t quick­ly send them back to their home­lands. The eight men sent to South Su­dan in May had been con­vict­ed of se­ri­ous crimes in the U.S. and had fi­nal or­ders of re­moval.

Mur­phy, who was nom­i­nat­ed by De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, didn’t pro­hib­it de­por­ta­tions to third coun­tries. But he found mi­grants must have a re­al chance to ar­gue they could be in dan­ger of tor­ture if sent to an­oth­er coun­try, even if they’ve al­ready ex­haust­ed their le­gal ap­peals.

The men and their guards have faced rough con­di­tions on the naval base in Dji­bouti where au­thor­i­ties de­toured the flight af­ter Mur­phy found the ad­min­is­tra­tion had vi­o­lat­ed his or­der by fail­ing al­low them a chance to chal­lenge the re­moval. They have since ex­pressed a fear of be­ing sent to South Su­dan, Real­mu­to said.

WASH­ING­TON (AP)