A federal appeals court has blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to broaden the reach of fast-track deportations inside the United States, leaving in place a lower court ruling that said the policy violated the due process rights of migrants. In a 2–1 decision, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals refused to suspend the injunction issued in August by US District Judge Jia Cobb, who found that the expanded removal system unlawfully exposed migrants to the risk of being detained and deported from anywhere in the country if officials believed they had lived in the US for less than two years.
The administration had argued that Judge Cobb’s ruling should be paused while its full appeal proceeds, but the appeals panel rejected that request. Judges Patricia Millett and J. Michelle Childs concluded that the government was unlikely to demonstrate that its procedures sufficiently protected the constitutional rights of migrants under the Fifth Amendment. They warned that extending expedited removal beyond border regions created “serious risks of erroneous summary removal,” meaning individuals with valid claims could be deported with little opportunity to challenge the decision.
Although the court left almost all of Cobb’s restrictions in place, it did agree to lift one portion of her order that required changes to how immigration officers evaluate “credible fear” claims from migrants seeking protection. In a dissenting opinion, Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee, criticised the ruling as “impermissible judicial interference” in the executive branch’s immigration authority.
The Department of Homeland Security has not yet commented on the decision, and the administration’s full appeal is scheduled to be heard on 9 December. The expedited removal system has existed since the late 1990s as a tool for quickly deporting migrants apprehended near the US-Mexico border. But in January, the current administration attempted to revive and expand a 2019 Trump-era policy—rescinded under President Joe Biden—that allowed immigration officers to use fast-track deportations anywhere in the country for individuals unable to prove two years of continuous presence. That earlier policy had also faced a legal challenge brought by the advocacy organisation Make the Road New York.
