WASHINGTON -- A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from carrying out speedy deportations of undocumented migrants detained in the interior of the United States.
The move is a setback for the President Donald Trump's efforts to expand the use of the federal expedited removal statute to quickly remove some migrants in the country illegally without appearing before a judge first.
Trump promised to engineer a massive deportation operation during his 2024 campaign if voters returned him to the White House. He set a goal of carrying out 1 million deportations a year in his second term.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb suggested the administration's expanded use of the expedited removal of migrants is trampling on individuals' due process 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 in a 48-page opinion issued Friday night. "Were that right, not only noncitizens, but everyone would be at risk."
The Department of Homeland Security announced shortly after Trump came to office in January that it would expand the use of expedited removal, the fast-track deportation of undocumented migrants who have been in the U.S. less than two years. The effort triggered lawsuits by the American Civil Liberties Union and immigrant rights groups.
DHS said Cobb's "ruling ignores the President's clear authorities under both Article II of the Constitution and the plain language of federal law." It said Trump "has a mandate to arrest and deport the worst of the worst" and that "we have the law, facts, and common sense on our side."
Before the administration's push to expand such speedy deportations, expedited removal was used only for migrants who were stopped within 100 miles of the border and who were in the U.S. for less than 14 days.
Cobb, nominated by Democratic President Joe Biden, didn't question the constitutionality of the expedited removal statute, or its application at the border.
"It merely holds that in applying the statute to a huge group of people living in the interior of the country who have not previously been subject to expedited removal, the Government must afford them due process," she wrote.
She added that "prioritizing speed over all else will inevitably lead the Government to erroneously remove people via this truncated process."
Cobb also this month temporarily blocked the administration's efforts to expand fast-track deportations of immigrants who legally entered the U.S. under humanitarian parole.
Since May, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested people in court hallways after judges accepted government requests to dismiss deportation cases. After the arrests, the government renewed deportation proceedings but under fast-track authority.