Aug. 30 (UPI) — A federal judge prevented the Trump administration from fast-tracking deportations, ruling expedited removal creates a “significant risk” to migrants’ due process.
Late Friday night, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in the District of Columbia issued a 48-page ruling that stays the deportations, many of which have proceeded without court proceedings of undocumented migrants. She denied a request by the Department of Justice to put it on hold for 14 days to allow lawyers to appeal, writing there is no need for “time to deliberate.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was the defendant in the lawsuit, which was filed by Make the Road New York, an immigrant rights group, and others. Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union argued the case on their behalf.
The Trump administration had expanded the process that for decades was from within 100 miles of the southern border and 14 days.
In 2019, during Donald Trump’s first presidency, the method applied to anyone residing in the United States who could not show they have been in the country for more than two years. President Joe Biden stopped the policy and Trump brought it back this year.
Cobb, who was appointed by Biden, wrote “the group of people the Government is now subjecting to expedited removal have long since entered our country. That means that they 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.”
She said “prioritizing speed over all else will inevitably lead the Government to erroneously remove people via this truncated process. That is because most noncitizens living in the interior have been here longer than two years, rendering them ineligible for expedited removal, and many are seeking asylum or another form of immigration relief, entitling them to further process before they can be removed.”
She said the government is flouting people’s rights.
“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,” Cobb wrote. “Were that right, not only noncitizens, but everyone would be at risk. The Government could accuse you of entering unlawfully, relegate you to a bare-bones proceeding where it would ‘prove’ your unlawful entry, and then immediately remove you.”
She added: “Fortunately, that is not the law.”
The judge noted the government has a goal of 3,000 immigrant arrests daily.
Cobb said agents had staked out courthouses, targeting those pursuing asylum claims and other pathways to stay in the country legally and then arresting them ahead of planned deportation. Most of them have been carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Immigration judges are part of the Executive Branch and appointed by the DOJ.
On Aug. 1, Cobb blocked the expedited removal of several hundred thousand immigrants allowed to legally reside in the United States through an immigration parole program for humanitarian purposes.
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