Judge says Trump effort to expand speedy deportations of migrants violates due process

A federal judge on Friday blocked a Trump administration effort that aims to speed deportations of migrants detained in the interior of the United States, slamming it as a violation of due process.

Unlike migrants detained at or near the border, who have previously been subject to expedited removal, the people the administration are now targeting have “long since entered” the country, wrote US District Court Judge Jia Cobb.

“That means that they have a weighty liberty interest in remaining here and therefore must be afforded due process under the Fifth Amendment,” said Cobb, who was nominated to the federal bench in Washington, DC, by former President Joe Biden.

The push to accelerate deportations was put into effect in the early days of President Donald Trump’s second term, expanding a Department of Homeland Security policy that had previously limited expedited removal to migrants detained within 100 miles of the US border and who had been present in the country for less than two weeks. Cobb was particularly unhappy with the idea that the administration believed none of the migrants should enjoy 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 added. “Were that right, not only noncitizens, but everyone would be at risk. 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.”