The Trump administration can resume rapidly deporting immigrants to countries other than their own, the Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday. The one-page emergency ruling was unsigned and gave no vote count. Although the justices cleared the way, for now, for the swift removals to continue, the court also announced that it would fast-track the case and hear oral arguments about it in December, setting up a final ruling on the issue next year. The court’s three liberal justices noted that they would have denied the government’s request to resume the deportations.

The decision was a victory for the administration, which has made sending immigrants to so-called third countries, including those that have faced allegations of human rights abuses, a major part of its mass deportation efforts. The deportation flights had been blocked in recent weeks after a federal court ruled the administration could not deport migrants to third countries unless they were given an opportunity to contest their removals.

The justices’ ruling means that the administration can, for now, continue its program and conduct rapid deportations including to countries like Equatorial Guinea, where U.S. deportees were hooded, bound and beaten by the police. So far, the administration has sent more than 25,000 people to third countries, according to James Percival, the top lawyer at the Department of Homeland Security. Among the countries were Liberia, Equatorial Guinea, Costa Rica, Honduras and the Central African Republic.

Some immigration and human rights experts have asserted that the third-country deportations may be part of a broader strategy to encourage undocumented immigrants to leave on their own. Solicitor General D. John Sauer characterized the program as “an essential tool to remove certain aliens.” Lawyers for a group of immigrants challenging their removals argued that the administration had ignored “the significant harm resulting from deporting thousands of longtime U.S. residents.”