WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from carrying out speedy deportations of undocumented migrants detained in the interior of the United States.
The move is a setback for the Republican administration's efforts to expand the use of the federal expedited removal statute to quickly remove some migrants in the country illegally without appearing before a judge first.
President Donald Trump promised to engineer a massive deportation operation during his 2024 campaign if voters returned him to the White House. And he set a goal of carrying out 1 million deportations a year in his second term.
But U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, D.C., suggested the Trump administration's expanded use of the expedited removal of migrants is trampling on individuals' due process rights.
"In defending this skimpy process, the Government makes a truly startling argument: that those who entered the country illegally are entitled to no process under the Fifth Amendment, but instead must accept whatever grace Congress affords them," Cobb wrote in a 48-page opinion issued Friday night. "Were that right, not only noncitizens, but everyone would be at risk."
The Department of Homeland Security announced shortly after Trump came to office in January that it was expanding the use of expedited removal, the fast-track deportation of undocumented migrants who have been in the U.S. less than two years.
The effort has triggered lawsuits by the American Civil Liberties Union and immigrant rights groups.
Before the Trump administration's push to expand such speedy deportations, expedited removal was only used for migrants who were stopped within 100 miles of the border and who had been in the U.S. for less than 14 days.
Cobb, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, didn't question the constitutionality of the expedited removal statute, or its application at the border.
"It merely holds that in applying the statute to a huge group of people living in the interior of the country who have not previously been subject to expedited removal, the Government must afford them due process," she writes.
Cobb earlier this month agreed to temporarily block the Trump administration's efforts to expand fast-track deportations of immigrants who legally entered the U.S. under a process known as humanitarian parole — a ruling that could benefit hundreds of thousands of people.
In that case the judge said Homeland Security exceeded its statutory authority in its effort to expand expedited removal for many immigrants. The judge said those immigrants are facing perils that outweigh any harm from "pressing pause" on the administration's plans.
Since May, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have positioned themselves in hallways to arrest people after judges accept government requests to dismiss deportation cases. After the arrests, the government renews deportation proceedings but under fast-track authority.
Although fast-track deportations can be put on hold by filing an asylum claim, people may be unaware of that right and, even if they are, can be swiftly removed if they fail an initial screening.
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