Fourth Circuit Overturns Lowly District Court Judge, Okays Trump's Expedited Deportations

Congress passed a bill authorizing expedited deportation -- which could take as little as a few days. They called this, "expedited deportations."

I am stressing it's called "expedited deportations" because the Hawaiian judges who keep blocking Trump from doing this seem to think that Trump is breaking the law by attempting to use expedited deportations to deport illegal aliens in an expeditious manner. They think it should take years upon years until the feds just give up and let the illegal alien stay forever.

The Fourth Circuit considered the dispute. They looked at the part of the law that says "expedited deportations" and
reasoned that the law must mean that illegal aliens can be deported expeditiously.

Federal court allows ICE to expand expedited deportations nationwide

A federal appeals court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to move forward with an effort to expand fast-track deportations throughout the U.S., in a legal win for the president's crackdown on illegal immigration.

The 2-1 decision by a panel of judges at the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia Circuit allows the Department of Homeland Security to carry out an expansion of the expedited removal process, which empowers federal immigration officials to deport some detainees without court hearings.

Before the second Trump administration, the expedited removal policy was limited to areas close to the border and only applied to recent entrants who could not prove they had been living in the country for more than two weeks.

But the policy allowed to take effect Tuesday -- which was drafted in the first week of President Trump's second term in January 2025 -- expands expedited removal to anywhere in the United States. Officials can use it on any unauthorized immigrant who cannot prove they have been in the country for more than two years.

Congress left it to the Executive to determine how broadly to apply the power. Leftists have been suing for years claiming that because previous presidents -- Biden and Obama --did not choose to use the power to its maximum effect, that means Trump isn't allowed to either.

And Hawaiian judges agreed.

But now they've been overruled.

In August 2025, a federal judge found the Trump administration's expansion of expedited removal violated due process rights, following a lawsuit from immigrant advocacy group Make the Road New York. The panel of appellate judges disagreed Tuesday, invalidating her order.

The two appellate judges in the majority -- Trump-appointed Justin Walker and Neomi Rao -- found the policy offers sufficient due process protections.

"Make the Road has not shown that the expedited-removal process denies its members notice and an opportunity to be heard," they wrote.

The law stupidly includes a provision that an illegal who can show that he's been living in America, illegally or legally (and it will be illegally, of course) for two years is not subject to this expedited form of deportation.

Leftists made up a new part of the law that would read, if it existed, that Trump is required to inform each deportee of this fact so they can begin scrambling to make up a fake timeline showing their continuous presence in the US.

Held: Cops and judges do not have to write illegal aliens' defense motions for them.

Last August, a lower court judge called the government's procedures for ensuring people aren't accidentally subjected to expedited removal "woefully inadequate," writing that migrants were not even informed of the fact that being in the country for at least two years is a possible defense. On Tuesday, the appellate court pushed back, finding that standard "would require immigration officers to provide what amounts to legal advice."

Obama-appointed Circuit Judge Robert Wilkins dissented from the core of the ruling, arguing the policy deprives people of due process rights. In part, he wrote that the policy doesn't require immigration officials to ask migrants how long they have been in the country, or inform them of the two-year rule.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:29 PM

| Access Comments