Federal judge blocks Trump effort to expand fast-track deportations

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration's efforts to expand a fast-track deportation process, ruling that the broadened application of the sped-up process creates "a significant risk" that immigrants who may be entitled to stay in the US will be hustled out of the country, Report informs via Politico.

In a decision issued Friday evening, US District Judge Jia Cobb granted a request by an immigrant advocacy group to put a hold on a pair of policies the administration issued in January that made millions more immigrants eligible for expulsion from the US under a process known as "expedited removal."

For most of the past two decades, the fast-track deportation process was limited to foreigners intercepted within 100 miles of a US land border and within two weeks of entering the US However, in 2019, during President Donald Trump's first term, the policy was expanded to apply anywhere in the US and to any unauthorized immigrant who cannot show they have been in the country for more than two years.

The Biden administration rolled the policy back, but Trump put it back in place when he returned to office in January.

Cobb said foreigners impacted by the expansion "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," wrote Cobb, a Biden appointee based in Washington. "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 described as "startling" and "extraordinary" the Trump administration's claim that foreigners who have lived in the US for years have no due process rights to fight their deportation beyond whatever process Congress has authorized. Cobb said the urgency of the need for relief in the case was underscored by the Trump administration's adoption of a new, controversial tactic under which immigrants" ordinary immigration court proceedings are dismissed at a hearing and the immigrants are then arrested and put into the fast-track deportation process.

Cobb's ruling takes effect immediately. She denied a request by the administration to put it on hold for two weeks to allow Justice Department lawyers to seek relief from a higher court.

Earlier this month, Cobb blocked the use of the "expedited removal" process against hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were allowed into the US in recent years through so-called immigration parole programs.

Spokespeople for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.