A federal court paved the way this Monday for the Donald Trump administration to accelerate the expulsion of illegal immigrants from the country, thus lifting the suspension of a lower court that had blocked this policy last year.
The disputed directive dated back to January 2025 and allows immigration officers to deport foreign nationals intercepted anywhere in the country without a hearing if they cannot prove two years of continuous presence in the U.S. The judges concluded that Congress granted the executive branch broad authority to implement expedited removal in immigration cases.
Expedited removal, created by Congress in 1996, was applied for nearly three decades only to foreign nationals captured less than 100 miles from a land border and within 14 days of their entry. But the order that Trump signed extends this directive nationwide and covers any foreign national who cannot convince an officer of their continuous presence for two years, with their expulsion potentially occurring within hours.
Expedited removal can now be applied nationwide
As explained earlier, this decision overturned the ruling of a lower court that had suspended the rule last year on due process grounds under the Fifth Amendment, arguing that individuals with longer ties to the country are entitled to greater procedural protections than migrants intercepted at the border.
