By Nate Raymond
June 23 (Reuters) – A federal appeals court cleared the way on Tuesday for the Trump administration to expand a fast-track deportation process that would allow for the expedited removal of migrants who are living far from the border.
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 to overturn a decision by a judge who in August 2025 blocked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s move to expand who qualifies for expedited removal.
That expedited removal process has for nearly three decades been used to quickly return migrants apprehended at the border. But in January 2025, the administration expanded its scope to cover non-citizens apprehended anywhere in the U.S. who could not show that they had been in the country for two years.
The policy mirrored one the Trump administration adopted in 2019 that the Biden administration later rescinded.
After the immigrant rights advocacy group Make the Road New York sued, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb blocked the enforcement of those new policies, saying they violate the constitutional due process rights of migrants who could be apprehended anywhere in the U.S.
But the D.C. Circuit disagreed in a ruling authored by U.S. Circuit Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, who said that the Trump administration was allowed to expand “expedited removal to the maximum extent allowed by Congress.”
He said migrants are given notice that DHS is placing them in expedited removal and receive a chance to object, including by showing that they have been continually present in the U.S. for two years.
“At most, the district court’s findings show that Congress’s expedited screening system operates quickly and with practical constraints — features the statute itself contemplates,” he wrote. “They do not show that the challenged directives deprive aliens of a meaningful opportunity to be heard.”
His opinion was joined in large part by U.S. Circuit Judge Neomi Rao, who was also appointed by Trump, and drew a dissent from U.S. Circuit Judge Robert Wilkins, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama.
Wilkins objected to allowing migrants to be subjected to the fast-track deportation process without even being asked how long they have been living in the U.S., saying such a procedure “is woefully inadequate for persons encountered in the interior of the country.”
James Percival, DHS’ general counsel, said in a statement that the ruling “vindicated our decision to apply the law as written.”
Anand Balakrishnan, a lawyer for Make the Road New York at the American Civil Liberties Union, in a statement said they are exploring next steps in their challenge to the administration’s policy.
“The Trump administration’s push for fast-track deportations will subject people to an unfair and error-prone system,” Balakrishnan said. “This ruling undermines the fundamental principle that people receive due process when the government seeks to deport them.”
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Mark Porter and Sanjeev Miglani)
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