Notable cases
On March 28, 2025, during the proceedings for D.V.D. v. Department of Homeland Security,[11] Murphy temporarily blocked the Department of Homeland Security from deporting people to "third countries", or countries other than the one they came from.[12][13] In April, he said that if the United States were to decide to deport anyone to a third country, it should first give the person a 15-day window to contest that decision.[14]
On May 20, 2025, the Trump administration was flying eight criminal migrants out of the United States to be deported to South Sudan, with less than a day's notice, when one of the migrant's lawyers requested for Murphy to intervene.[15] Murphy held hearings, trying to find out what was happening, while the Trump administration initially declined to inform him of the plane's location as it was "classified".[15] The Trump administration changed its plan, instead detaining the migrants in Camp Lemonnier, a U.S. military base in Djibouti.[15] On May 21, Murphy ruled that the Trump administration violated his court order with their "hurried and confused" notice to the migrants before attempting to deport them to South Sudan, which the American government had discouraged travel to due to "crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict".[14][16]
Murphy then ruled with possible courses of actions to the Trump administration to take, including detaining the migrants in the United States, or detaining them outside of the United States while arranging interviews for them regarding deportation.[15][17] The Trump administration continued to detain the migrants in Djibouti, while objecting to Murphy's ruling, to which Murphy responded that the Trump administration had "asked" for this "result", and was "manufacturing the very chaos they decry", with Murphy saying he acquiesced to the Trump administration's "suggestion that they be allowed to keep the [migrants] out of the [United States] and finish their process abroad".[17][18]
On July 3, 2025, the US Supreme Court in Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D., granted the government's request for an emergency stay of the court orders pending the Circuit Court's and its own review by a vote of 7–2. The court added a rare note at the end of its ruling. If the Government wishes to seek additional relief in aid of the execution of our mandate, it may do so through mandamus.[19][20] In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote:
This Court now intervenes to grant the Government emergency relief from an order it has repeatedly defied. I cannot join so gross an abuse of the Court’s equitable discretion...each time this Court rewards noncompliance with discretionary relief, it further erodes respect for courts and for the rule of law.
On January 6, 2026, Murphy denied the government's motion to dismiss a case brought by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical organizations against the United States Department of Health and Human Services and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., challenging Kennedy's changes to vaccine recommendations, and his dismissal and replacement of sitting members of Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Murphy held that the plaintiffs had legal standing to pursue their challenges, allowing discovery to go forward.[21] On March 16, 2026, Murphy granted an injunction and stayed the January 2026 revision of the CDC's childhood immunization schedule, as well as staying the appointments of all thirteen ACIP members and all votes taken by them.[22]
