Appeals Court Upholds Ruling Blocking Trump Plan for Expedited Removals

A federal appeals court over the weekend declined to lift a lower court order barring the Trump administration from using expedited removals to rapidly deport migrants without a court hearing, Rebecca Beitsch reported for The Hill.

The White House aimed to broaden expedited removals to those who crossed the border at any point in the last two years, anywhere in the country.

The administration earlier this year sought to expand the use of such proceedings, which were previously only used for recent arrivals encountered close to the border.

The White House aimed to broaden expedited removals to those who crossed the border at any point in the last two years, anywhere in the country.

In a 2–1 decision from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the panel declined to lift an August ruling that barred the administration from implementing the policy as the legal battle plays out.

The majority wrote that the policy carries “serious risks of erroneous summary removal” by swiftly deporting people with little opportunity to challenge the decision.

The judges also chastised the administration for using a process that fails to alert migrants — the majority of whom have been in the US for more than two years — that their length of residence could exclude them from the expedited process.

“It simply leaves it to the detained individual to spontaneously and affirmatively prove two years of continuous residence,” the judges wrote.