Federal judge halts Trump administration effort to expand fast-track deportations

A federal judge on Friday halted Trump administration policies aimed at expanding fast-track deportations, ruling that they violate the constitutional due process rights of migrants who could be apprehended anywhere nationally.U.S.

A federal judge on Friday halted Trump administration policies aimed at expanding fast-track deportations, ruling that they violate the constitutional due process rights of migrants who could be apprehended anywhere nationally.

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, D.C., sided with an immigrant rights group to put on hold two policies President Donald Trump‘s administration adopted in January that exposed millions of additional migrants to the risk of rapid expulsion.

That expedited removal process has for nearly three decades been used to quickly return migrants apprehended at the border. But in January, the administration expanded its scope to cover non-citizens apprehended anywhere in the United States who could not show they had been in the country for two years.

The policy mirrored one the Trump administration adopted in 2019 that Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration later rescinded, and immigration authorities have made “aggressive” use of the new removal power in recent months, Cobb said.

But she said that unlike the population of migrants traditionally subject to expedited removal who were detained shortly after crossing the border, the group now being targeted had long since entered the country.