The Trump administration is implementing a new policy to limit appeals for immigrants with deportation orders, aiming for faster deportations.
The Trump administration is attempting to eliminate most opportunities for immigrants with deportation orders to appeal their cases under a new policy, the latest step by the government to strip immigrants of due process rights so they can be deported more quickly.
Under the new policy, posted by the Justice Department to the Federal Register on Thursday, the administration is seeking to change several rules to make it nearly impossible for immigrants, many of whom are seeking asylum, to appeal their deportation cases.
Immigrants will now be given 10 days, rather than the current 30 days, to appeal a deportation order. And their appeals will be automatically dismissed after 15 days unless a majority of immigration appeals judges, who are handpicked by the Trump administration, vote to hear them.
The changes will take effect in a month. They were issued as an interim final rule, meaning the public will be allowed to comment on their impact, but the feedback won't necessarily be consulted to reshape the policy further. Issuing the policy before the customary notice and comment process is gathered and incorporated could open the administration to legal challenges on procedural grounds.
Immigrant advocates called the changes an illegal attempt to strip immigrants of their due process rights. The new limits, immigration lawyers said, may not give immigrants enough time to find legal representation to file their appeal.
"This is also a clear violation of the Due Process Clause, and is further evidence of this administration's disregard for the Constitution," said Charles Kuck, a prominent immigration lawyer and advocate in Atlanta, on X.
The administration said the changes will help clear an appeals backlog of more than 200,000 immigration cases, forcing people to wait longer for answers and, in the government's view, prolonging their time in the country before they can be deported. It also argues that reviews of immigration judges' decisions are in many cases unnecessary because the appeals body isn't likely to disagree with the judges' reasoning.
Unlike most courts in the U.S., immigration courts are directly controlled by the political leadership of the Justice Department, who can set policies around how judges rule and even overturn judges' decisions officials don't like.
The policy is the latest the administration has issued to make it tougher for immigrants to win their cases, so they can be deported more quickly. In November, the Department of Homeland Security put all pending asylum cases on hold, meaning no one could be granted the status, which puts them on a path to citizenship.
The government is also jailing more people for the duration of their deportation cases, leading immigrants to abandon the legal process.