Judge Allows Speedy Deportations With Minimal Due Process

President Donald Trump and his administration haven’t been faring well in the federal court system as of late — and throughout most of his second term, really — as his attempts at lawfare against political rivals, his tariffs, his attacks on SNAP, his retaliatory subpoenas against various Democratic leaders he doesn’t like, and his attempts at withholding various funds for various programs he considered “woke DEI” have all largely been shut down by federal judges appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents, including some of Trump’s own appointees.

When it comes to his immigration policies and how they fare in federal court, though, Trump’s cases have been hit or miss, more or less, with the president’s administration taking a more even share of wins and losses, such as his successful fight to allow racial profiling to be utilized in immigration enforcement, and his unsuccessful fights to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protections for Somali and Haitian refugees who are documented.

On Tuesday, the Trump administration was handed one of its wins, as a federal appeals court ruled that the administration can resume carrying out speedy deportations of undocumented migrants throughout the United States, not just near the border, deporting migrants without allowing them a day in court.

From NPR:

A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out a lower court decision that temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s expanded use of expedited removal. The ruling was a big victory for the Republican administration, which views the expansion of so-called expedited removal as a key tool for carrying out its mass deportation policy.

Expedited removal — quick deportation without a chance to appear before a judge — has previously been applied to migrants arriving by sea or caught at or near the border shortly after crossing.

DC Circuit Judge Justin R. Walker, one of the judges on the panel, wrote in his opinion that the plaintiffs had not proven that the expanded use of expedited removal violated due process rights, as immigrants received notice of removal proceedings and were given a chance to respond.

“The constitutional requirement is notice of the action the government is taking and the grounds for it, plus an opportunity to respond,” he wrote.

So, basically, under Trump, we’ve decided that due process can be a simple phone call or email to an immigrant, notifying them that they’re flagged for removal.

“The Trump administration’s push for fast-track deportations will subject people to an unfair and error-prone system,” Anand Balakrishnan, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement following the ruling, which he said “undermines the fundamental principle that people receive due process when the government seeks to deport them.”

Unfortunately, the judges — two of whom were appointed by Trump, while the lone dissenting judge was appointed by former President Barack Obama — only seemed interested in arguing their interpretation of the letter of the law and how they feel the Constitution applies. They’re not asking the “why” question.

Why is the president so determined to add an express lane to his mass deportation agenda, and why does his administration — which also targets documented migrants and has literally tried to deport some of them because they oppose the president politically — so dedicated to finding a workaround to habeas corpus, denying due process protections to whomever he chooses?

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