A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to expand a fast-track deportation process, ruling that the broadened application of the sped-up process creates “a significant risk” that immigrants who may be entitled to stay in the U.S. will be hustled out of the country.
In a decision issued Friday evening, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb granted a request by an immigrant advocacy group to put a hold on a pair of policies the administration issued in January that made millions more immigrants eligible for expulsion from the U.S. under a process known as “expedited removal.”
For most of the past two decades, the fast-track deportation process was limited to foreigners intercepted within 100 miles of a U.S. land border and within two weeks of entering the U.S. However, in 2019, during President Donald Trump’s first term, the policy was expanded to apply anywhere in the U.S. and to any unauthorized immigrant who cannot show they have been in the country for more than two years.
The Biden administration rolled the policy back, but Trump put it back in place when he returned to office in January.
