A federal appeals court said Tuesday the Trump administration was likely on firm legal footing with its massive expansion of speedy deportation powers.
The Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia erased a lower court ruling that had blocked the Department of Homeland Security from expanding what’s known as expedited removal to people caught well beyond the border zone.
Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, said that while past administrations have limited their own use of the power, such as only on people caught within 100 miles of the border, the actual law governing expedited removal allows it to be used quite expansively.
He said that covers the Trump administration’s expansion.
“Here, the directives are not unlawful,” Judge Walker wrote.
Expedited removal is one of a series of overlapping controls the Trump administration has put in place to seal off the southwestern border. Other prongs include restricting asylum claims and curtailing the use of parole to let migrants skip the usual immigration system.
Under the law, expedited removal can be used only on illegal immigrants who can’t prove they’ve been in the U.S. for at least two years.
Previous presidents restricted expedited removal to people who came to the U.S. by certain means — such as boats — or certain places, such as those caught within 100 miles of a border.
Early in the new Trump administration, however, DHS erased the 100-mile limit.
Immigrant rights groups sued, saying illegal immigrants in the interior had due process rights that were being denied by expedited removal.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, a Biden appointee, agreed in a ruling last August, saying migrants in the interior deserved more than a “skimpy” deportation process.
She pointed to one study that found 15% of people in expedited removal had tried to spark asylum claims but didn’t get a chance to make them.
Judge Walker, though, said that would be a problem with implementation but not with the Trump policy, which he said does hew to the letter of the law.
Siding with Judge Walker was Judge Neomi Rao, another Trump appointee, who said in her view the case should have been tossed by the courts as unreviewable.
Dissenting Tuesday was Judge Robert Wilkins, an Obama appointee, who said the fact that some people were wrongly deported under the new policy called the whole thing into question.
He said the issue is that the speedy procedures eliminate some of the checks that could have prevented those erroneous removals.
“A procedure that can result in persons being deported pursuant to the expedited removal statute without even being asked how long they have been in the country might satisfy due process for persons encountered at the border, but it is woefully inadequate for persons encountered in the interior of the country,” he wrote.
