As the conservative wing of the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday sided with the Trump administration and stayed a district court's preliminary injunction pending appeal, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor sharply criticized the majority for "clos[ing] its eyes" and "rewarding lawlessness" by permitting the government to resume so-called "third-country" deportations.

The court needed five justices to grant the stay, and the nine-member court accomplished that without the help of the dissenting Sotomayor and Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

As recently as early June, immigration lawyers opposing the Trump administration's stay application urged the high court not to lose sight of the government's "own choices — to violate the district court's orders" by moving to "deport two groups of class members to Libya and South Sudan" even after U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy issued the injunction in April.