Appeals court allows Trump to fast-track deportation process nationwide

A federal appeals court cleared the way on ⁠Tuesday for the Trump ⁠administration to expand ​a fast-track deportation process that would allow for the expedited removal of immigrants who are living far from the border. A panel of the US court of ⁠appeals for the District of Columbia circuit ruled 2-1 to overturn a decision by a judge who in August 2025 blocked the US Department of Homeland Security’s move to expand who ⁠qualifies for expedited removal. That expedited removal process has for nearly three decades been used to quickly return migrants apprehended ​at the border. But in January 2025, the administration ‌expanded its scope to cover non-citizens ‌apprehended anywhere in the US who could not show that they had been in the country for two ‌years. The policy mirrored one the Trump administration adopted in 2019 that the Biden administration later rescinded. After the immigrant rights advocacy group Make the Road New York sued, US district judge Jia Cobb blocked the enforcement of those new policies, saying they violate the constitutional due process rights of migrants who could be apprehended anywhere in the US. But the DC circuit disagreed in a ruling authored by circuit judge Justin Walker, a ‌Trump appointee, who said that the Trump administration was allowed to expand “expedited removal to the maximum extent allowed by Congress”. …