Judge Blocks Trump’s Expanded Deportation Plan

A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from swiftly deporting illegal migrants from the interior of the US.

Washington, DC-based District Judge Jia Cobb, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, argued that “prioritizing speed over all else will inevitably lead the Government to erroneously remove people.”

The Trump administration had sought to expand the scope of the expedited removal process – typically used to fast-track deportations for migrants apprehended within 14 days of entering the country and caught within 100 miles of a US land border – to use on migrants “anywhere in the United States” and in the county illegally for “less than two years.”

“The Court does not cast doubt on the constitutionality of the expedited removal statute, nor on its longstanding application at the border,” Cobb wrote in her 48-page opinion.

“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. The procedures currently in place fall short,” she added.

The order does not give an expiration date for the stay, but indefinitely postpones the federal government’s ability to carry out the fast-paced deportations until a future court date.

Cobb argued that illegal migrants impacted by the Trump administration’s attempt to expand expedited removals “have a weighty liberty interest in remaining here and therefore must be afforded due process under the Fifth Amendment.”

“When it exponentially expanded the population subject to expedited removal, the Government did not, however, in any way adapt its procedures to this new group of people,” she wrote. “But when it comes to people living in the interior of the country, prioritizing speed over all else will inevitably lead the Government to erroneously remove people via this truncated process.”

Cobb further chided the Trump administration, arguing that their “skimpy process” on deportations could mean anyone could be accused of entering unlawfully, and the government could “relegate you to a bare-bones proceeding where it would “prove” your unlawful entry, and then immediately remove you.”

“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,” Were that right, not only noncitizens, but everyone would be at risk.”

“By merely accusing you of entering unlawfully, the Government would deprive you of any meaningful opportunity to disprove its allegations.”