A federal appeals court cleared the way for the Trump administration to resume fast-track deportations of illegal immigrants found anywhere in the United States, vacating a lower court order that had frozen the policy for months. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled 2-1 on Monday that the challengers were unlikely to succeed on their constitutional claims, and that the Biden-appointed district judge who blocked the policy got it wrong.
The ruling hands the Department of Homeland Security a significant legal victory in its effort to enforce expedited removal to the fullest extent Congress allows. It also marks another instance in which a federal appellate court has reversed a single district judge's nationwide injunction against a Trump immigration initiative.
Judge Justin Walker, writing for the majority, concluded that DHS acted within its statutory discretion when it expanded expedited removal to cover illegal immigrants who entered unlawfully and cannot demonstrate at least two years of continuous presence in the country. The policy, Walker wrote, simply applied existing authority to its legal limit.
The case centered on a challenge brought by Make the Road, an advocacy organization that argued the expedited removal expansion violated constitutional due process protections. The group contended that DHS was required to proactively inform individuals of the two-year continuous-presence rule, essentially, to coach people on how to contest their own deportation.
Walker's majority opinion rejected that argument squarely. The Constitution, he wrote, requires the government to provide notice of the action it is taking and the grounds for it, plus an opportunity to respond. It does not require the government to explain how an individual might prevail.
"If due process requires the government to inform individuals of the two-year continuous-presence rule, it presumably also requires informing them of every other basis for contesting expedited removal. Make the Road offers no limiting principle and identifies no authority for so expansive a requirement."
That reasoning cuts to the heart of the legal dispute. Make the Road wanted the courts to impose an affirmative obligation on DHS officers to lay out every possible defense an illegal immigrant might raise. The D.C. Circuit said no such obligation exists.
The majority also addressed evidence in the record that some individuals had been erroneously subjected to expedited removal despite living in the country for more than two years. The court acknowledged such errors would be unlawful, but drew a sharp line between individual officer mistakes and a systemic constitutional defect in the policy itself.
"To be sure, the record contains evidence that some aliens have been erroneously subjected to expedited removal despite having been present for more than two years. If so, that's illegal. But the cause there would be individual officers' failure to follow the law, not defects in the written directives under review."
That distinction matters. The lower court, presided over by U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, a Biden appointee, had issued a nationwide stay blocking the entire policy. Cobb found that the expansion created a significant risk that individuals could be wrongly deported before having a meaningful opportunity to prove they were exempt. The appeals court disagreed with that sweeping conclusion.
The D.C. Circuit's reversal fits a broader pattern that conservative legal observers have tracked since the Trump administration began reinstating enforcement priorities. Across the country, Biden-appointed judges have repeatedly blocked Trump immigration policies with broad injunctions, only to see those orders narrowed, stayed, or vacated on appeal.
Judge Robert Wilkins, the sole dissenter, argued that DHS procedures did not give noncitizens a meaningful opportunity to demonstrate continuous presence. His dissent framed the issue as one of procedural fairness.
"DHS is using procedures that do not allow a meaningful opportunity for noncitizens to demonstrate that they have been continuously present in the United States for two years."
Wilkins's concern is not frivolous on its face. But the majority's response, that the Constitution requires notice and a chance to respond, not a government-provided roadmap to beating deportation, reflects a more grounded reading of what due process actually demands.
The case also echoes other recent controversies involving Biden-appointed judges and immigration enforcement. In one striking episode, a Biden-appointed judge ordered ICE to release an illegal immigrant who was wanted for murder, without being told about the outstanding warrant. Episodes like that raise fair questions about whether some lower court judges are applying the law or applying their policy preferences.
Expedited removal is not a Trump invention. Congress created the authority decades ago, allowing DHS to quickly deport certain illegal immigrants without a full hearing before an immigration judge. The statute covers individuals who were not lawfully admitted or paroled and who cannot show they have been continuously present in the country for at least two years.
For years, however, DHS applied the authority narrowly, limited to individuals apprehended within 14 days of entry and within 100 miles of the border. The Trump administration first expanded expedited removal nationwide during its first term in 2019, arguing that the statutory text supported broader application.
The Biden administration rescinded that expansion. When Trump returned to office in January 2025, DHS reinstated the policy. The legal challenges followed almost immediately.
DHS General Counsel James Percival celebrated Monday's ruling in a statement to Fox News Digital, framing it as a vindication of the administration's straightforward reading of the law.
"For years, DHS has arbitrarily limited expedited removal to 14 days even though it applies to illegal aliens who entered the country illegally within the last two years. Today, the D.C. Circuit vindicated our decision to apply the law as written. It's not too late to take a $2,600 check and a free flight home!"
Percival's reference to a "$2,600 check and a free flight home" points to a voluntary departure incentive, a detail that undercuts the narrative that the administration's enforcement posture leaves no room for cooperation.
The central legal question, how much procedural protection the government must provide before deporting someone through expedited removal, will likely continue to generate litigation. But Monday's ruling narrows the ground available to challengers considerably.
Walker's majority opinion established that the government satisfies due process by telling an individual what action is being taken and why, and by giving them a chance to respond. It does not have to spell out every possible legal argument the individual might raise. That framework, if it holds, would make it far harder for advocacy groups to use procedural challenges to slow-walk enforcement.
The ruling also implicitly rebukes the growing practice of single district judges issuing nationwide injunctions that freeze entire federal policies. Judge Cobb's order did not merely protect the specific plaintiffs before her, it blocked the policy everywhere, for everyone. The D.C. Circuit's decision to vacate that order entirely, rather than simply narrow it, sends a signal about the limits of trial-court authority.
That tension between district courts and appellate courts has become a recurring feature of immigration litigation. The D.C. Circuit itself has not always ruled in the administration's favor, which makes Monday's decision all the more notable. When even the D.C. Circuit, not historically the friendliest venue for conservative executive action, says the lower court went too far, the lower court went too far.
The political environment around these judicial battles has grown increasingly charged. Calls for greater respect toward the judiciary have come from figures across the political spectrum, but respect runs both ways. Judges who use their authority to substitute their policy preferences for those of the elected branches invite the very scrutiny they say they want to avoid.
Several open questions remain. The full case name and docket number were not specified in available reporting, and it is unclear whether Make the Road will seek rehearing en banc or petition the Supreme Court. The identity of the third judge on the panel, the second member of the majority alongside Walker, was not identified.
It is also unclear whether the ruling takes immediate effect or whether a further mandate process must play out before DHS can resume expanded expedited removals nationwide. Given the pattern of legal challenges to Trump-era policies, further procedural skirmishing is likely.
What is clear is that the D.C. Circuit has told the administration it can enforce the law as Congress wrote it, not as advocacy groups and sympathetic judges would prefer it to read. DHS can apply expedited removal to illegal immigrants who entered unlawfully and have been here less than two years, wherever in the country they are found.
That is not a radical proposition. It is what the statute says. The fact that it took years of litigation and a 2-1 appellate reversal to get there tells you everything about who has been standing in the way, and why.