Overview

• U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb issued a 48-page order blocking a January directive that extended expedited removal nationwide and to noncitizens present in the U.S. for up to two years.
• The injunction bars the government from using expedited removal against immigrants who entered under humanitarian parole.
• Cobb wrote that the decision does not question the expedited removal statute’s constitutionality or its longstanding use at the border.
• The opinion rejected the government’s claim that those who entered illegally receive no Fifth Amendment process and found the current procedures likely to cause erroneous removals in the interior.
• Expedited removal allows deportation without an immigration judge unless a person seeks asylum and passes an initial screening, a tool the administration has tried to use to accelerate removals.