Order is a setback for Trump’s efforts to expand the expedited removal statute to quickly remove migrants without appearing before a judge
A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from carrying out speedy deportations of undocumented migrants detained in the interior of the United States.
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 US District Judge Jia Cobb suggested the 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 on Friday night. “Were that right, not only non-citizens, but everyone would be at risk.”
