A divided federal appeals court has handed the Trump administration a significant immigration victory, clearing the way for the government to fast-track deportations across the country without first sending cases through immigration court. Civil-liberties advocates and the dissenting judge warn the policy carries a serious risk of removing people who actually have a right to stay.
On June 23, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled 2-1 that the administration may resume nationwide use of “expedited removal” — a process that lets immigration officers order the deportation of certain migrants without a hearing before an immigration judge. The policy applies to people who have been in the United States for less than two years and cannot demonstrate that they have been here longer.
What the majority decided
Writing for the majority, Judge Justin Walker held that the expedited-removal process does not violate the Constitution’s due-process guarantee. In his reasoning, migrants subject to the policy still receive notice of the government’s intent to remove them and an opportunity to respond — including the chance to claim a credible fear of persecution, which can route an asylum seeker into a separate screening. Because of those steps, the majority concluded, the process provides the level of due process the Constitution requires, even without a courtroom hearing before a judge.
The ruling lifts a lower-court block and allows the policy to take effect nationwide while the underlying litigation continues. In practical terms, that means immigration officers can once again apply fast-track removal far from the border, not just to recent arrivals caught nearby.
The dissent’s warning
The decision was not unanimous, and the dissent pushed back forcefully. Judge Cobb warned that the expedited-removal system carries a “high risk of error” — that people with legitimate claims to remain in the country could be deported by mistake, with little meaningful chance to be heard before they are gone. Once someone is removed, the dissent noted, correcting a wrongful deportation becomes extraordinarily difficult.
Immigrant-rights organizations echoed that concern. Stripping cases out of immigration court, they argue, removes exactly the kind of judicial check that exists to catch mistakes — and shifts enormous power to front-line officers making rapid decisions under pressure. Critics describe the policy as due process delivered through the side door: fast, sweeping, and hard to reverse when it gets a case wrong.
What happens next
It is important to be precise about what the court actually held. This was an appeals-court ruling that the expedited-removal process is constitutionally sufficient — not a finding that migrants receive no due process at all. The warning that the system denies people a fair hearing is the position of the dissent and of advocacy groups, not an established holding of the court.
Supporters of the policy frame it as a necessary tool for faster, more efficient enforcement, easing a backlogged immigration-court system. Opponents counter that speed should never come at the expense of accuracy when the stakes are someone’s removal from the country, possibly to danger. With litigation still ongoing, the dispute over how much process the Constitution demands before a deportation is far from settled — and the next round is likely to land before the courts again.