Appeals Court Says Federal Government Can Fast-Track Deportations

President Donald Trump’s administration can fast-track deportations across the nation, a split federal appeals court panel ruled on June 23.

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) January 2025 order that authorized sped-up removal for many illegal immigrants fell within the authority granted to immigration officials by Congress, a majority of a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded.

The order cleared immigration personnel to speed up deportations for illegal aliens who entered the country without valid documentation or through fraud, had not been paroled, or had not proven that they were present in the United States for at least two years preceding a determination that they must be deported.

Through the order, DHS “exercised its discretion to apply its expedited removal authority to the maximum extent allowed by law,” said Circuit Judge Justin Walker, writing for the majority.

The appeals court overturned a 2025 ruling from Jia Cobb, a federal judge in Washington. Cobb had ruled that the expansion of expedited removal violated the constitutional rights of illegal immigrants and would lead to the erroneous deportation of immigrants who should not be removed from the country.

“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 at the time. “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.”

Walker said the appeals court was overturning Cobb’s preliminary injunction because the plaintiff in the case, an organization called Make the Road New York, has failed to establish it is likely to succeed in its legal challenge.

Make the Road said that under the procedure that expanded quick deportations, its members were not provided notice or an opportunity to be heard.

Walker stated that the government did issue notice of the change, and under the law even people subject to the sped-up deportations have an opportunity to respond.

Make the Road also argued that DHS wrongly left out on relevant forms that immigrants could avoid expedited removal if they proved two years of continuous presence, but there is no authority requiring that persons subject to the law be instructed about that exception, according to Walker.

“Here, aliens are informed that DHS is placing them in expedited removal. And they may contest their amenability to that process, including by asserting continuous presence,” he said. “The Fifth Amendment does not require the government to provide advance legal instruction, to reallocate statutory burdens, or to guarantee optimal conditions for evidence-gathering before the threshold determination Congress authorized.”

Circuit Judge Neomi Rao concurred with Walker.

Circuit Judge Robert Wilkins said in a partial dissent that courts have found the administration deported multiple noncitizens who had been in the country for more than two years.

“DHS has not contested this factual finding,” he said. “This begs the question of how and why the agency is removing people from the country in a manner contrary to the federal statute. The answer to this question is pretty simple: DHS is using procedures that do not allow a meaningful opportunity for noncitizens to demonstrate that they have been continuously present in the United States for two years.”

Make the Road New York did not return a request for comment by time of publication.

James Percival, the DHS general counsel, said in a statement that the court “vindicated our decision to apply the law as written.”