Judge blocks Trump's broad expansion of expedited removal of migrants

Source: Washington Post

A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from rapidly deporting undocumented immigrants detained away from the border without a court hearing, a setback for its mass deportation agenda.

In a 48-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Jia M. Cobb of D.C. wrote that the administration’s new policy in January to broadly expand a process known as “expedited removal” — which had previously been used to deport migrants detained at or near the U.S.-Mexico border — doesn’t provide adequate due process rights to those detained inside the country.

Cobb, in her ruling in a case brought by civil rights groups, wrote that “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. Were that right, not only noncitizens, but everyone would be at risk.”

Cobb, who was appointed President Joe Biden, said she was not questioning the constitutionality of the expedited removal statute and its “long-standing application” in border control. But she said 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.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/08/29/trump-deportation-expedited-removal/