Appeals Court Allows Trump To Massively Turbocharge Deportations

President Donald Trump can speed up deportations of illegal immigrants to new levels, thanks to a new federal appeals court ruling.

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision Tuesday allowing federal immigration agents to quickly deport illegal immigrants who can’t prove they’ve lived in the country continuously for two years or longer, according to The New York Times. Previously, federal authorities could only make the speedy removals when detaining illegal migrants at the border.

The deportations will likely only ramp up since the millions of targets of the order won’t have the ability to fight their removal in court.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) General Counsel James Percival celebrated Tuesday’s decision.

“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 DC 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 wrote in an X post.

Two of the three judges on Tuesday’s panel, both Trump appointees, sided with the Trump administration, according to the NYT. Judge Robert L. Wilkins, an Obama appointee, wrote the dissenting opinion.

In the majority opinion, Judge Justin R. Walker wrote that Congress gave the president the authority to expand the deportation policy, the outlet reported.

“For many years, while some were designated, others were not,” Walker wrote. “But that changed in January 2025 when the executive expanded expedited removal to the maximum extent allowed by Congress.”

The Trump administration instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to utilize expedited removal for illegal immigrants living in the interior of the country in January 2025. A lower court ruled against the policy change last August, arguing that it failed to give illegal immigrants due process and would result in their wrongful detention.

Judge Robert L. Wilkins wrote in his dissenting opinion that the previous ruling resulted in the removals of illegal immigrants who had been living in the country longer than two years, according to the NYT. He also wrote that the Trump administration failed to require federal immigration officers to ask potential targets of the policy how long they had been in the country.

“A procedure that can result in persons being deported pursuant to the expedited removal statute without even being asked how long they have been in the country might satisfy due process for persons encountered at the border, but it is woefully inadequate for persons encountered in the interior of the country,” he wrote.