A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Trump administration can move forward with its expanded program of rapid deportations of undocumented immigrants anywhere in the United States — not just in border areas.
A split three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck down a lower court order that had temporarily halted President Donald Trump’s broader use of expedited removal. The decision marks a significant win for the Republican administration, which considers the expanded deportation tool central to its mass removal strategy.
Expedited removal is a process that allows the government to deport migrants quickly, without giving them the opportunity to appear before an immigration judge. Historically, it had only been used against migrants arriving by sea or those apprehended at or close to the border shortly after entering the country.
In January, Trump signed an order extending expedited removal to undocumented immigrants living anywhere across the U.S. Following that change, immigration agents began detaining migrants at courthouses where they had shown up for immigration proceedings, then removing them from the country within just a few days.
Civil liberties groups pushed back hard against the ruling. “The Trump administration’s push for fast-track deportations will subject people to an unfair and error-prone system,” said Anand Balakrishnan, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. Balakrishnan, who argued on behalf of the plaintiffs before the appellate panel, added that the decision “undermines the fundamental principle that people receive due process when the government seeks to deport them.”
DC Circuit Judge Justin R. Walker, writing for the majority, concluded that the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate that the expanded program violated due process rights. In his opinion, Walker noted that immigrants were given notice of removal proceedings and had an opportunity to respond.
Walker and fellow majority judge Neomi Rao were both appointed to the bench by Trump. The third judge on the panel was appointed by President Barack Obama, a Democrat.
Walker also addressed whether immigration officers were required to inform migrants that they could challenge expedited removal by proving they had lived in the United States for more than two years. He said no such requirement exists. “The constitutional requirement is notice of the action the government is taking and the grounds for it, plus an opportunity to respond,” Walker wrote, adding that the plaintiffs’ “contrary reasoning would require immigration officers to provide what amounts to legal advice.”
The two-judge majority vacated an earlier ruling by U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, who had placed the expanded deportation program on hold. Cobb, appointed by President Joe Biden, a Democrat, had ruled in August that the administration failed to put in place adequate safeguards to prevent migrants from being wrongly deported under the expedited process.
Cobb had found that the plaintiffs presented “substantial evidence” that the expedited removal process carried a high risk of mistakes when applied on a broader scale. Her ruling referenced cases of individuals who had lived in the U.S. for well beyond two years but were still subjected to expedited removal orders.
Walker acknowledged in his opinion that such errors had occurred, but attributed them to “individual officers’ failure to follow the law — not defects in the written directives under review or the procedures they incorporate.”
The Trump administration has maintained that its expanded expedited removal program includes built-in protections against arbitrary deportations. In an October court filing, Justice Department attorneys described Cobb’s ruling as an “egregious error” that was stripping the administration of an “essential tool to combat the unprecedented surge of illegal immigration over the past few years” and its ability to efficiently deport potentially millions of people.
