A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from carrying out fast-track deportations of people detained far from the southern border, removing, for now, one of the cornerstones of President Trump’s campaign to carry out mass deportations.
The case focused on a policy shift announced during the first week of Mr. Trump’s second term that authorized the Department of Homeland Security to launch quick deportations, typically without court proceedings, of undocumented immigrants who cannot prove they have lived in the country for more than two years.
Such quick deportations have been carried out for decades, but only in limited cases of people arrested near the southern border, typically within 100 miles and within a 14-day period. The Trump administration sought to expand the practice nationwide, to hasten the removal of people arrested deep inside the country.
In a 48-page opinion, Judge Jia M. Cobb of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that the Trump administration had acted recklessly in a frenzied effort to quickly remove as many people as possible, likely violating due process rights and risking wrongful detentions.
She wrote that the administration had taken over a process that was once as simple as turning back migrants with negligible ties to the United States “after a single conversation with an immigration officer” near the southern border, making it a default practice in places as far away as New York.
“When it comes to people living in the interior of the country, prioritizing speed over all else will inevitably lead the government to erroneously remove people via this truncated process,” Judge Cobb wrote.
She took particular note of the evolution of the administration’s immigration policy in recent months. She said that in a race to meet quotas — as high as 3,000 immigration arrests per day — the administration had resorted to staking out courthouses, targeting people pursuing asylum claims and other pathways to remain in the country legally.
She rejected the government’s argument, used in several immigration cases, that migrants who crossed the border illegally forfeited standard protections such as the right to fight their removal in court. She warned that the argument was so broad that it could easily ensnare U.S. citizens.
“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,” she wrote.
“Were that right, not only noncitizens, but everyone would be at risk,” she added. “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.”
Zach Montague is a Times reporter covering the federal courts, including the legal disputes over the Trump administration’s agenda.
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