A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from quickly deporting illegal migrants living in the interior of the U.S.
Washington, D.C.-based District Judge Jia Cobb, a Biden appointee, issued the ruling Friday.
Cobb argued that “prioritizing speed over all else will inevitably lead the Government to erroneously remove people.”
The Trump administration had sought to expand expedited removals, a process previously reserved for migrants caught within 100 miles of the border within 14 days of entry, to any migrant in the country illegally for less than two years.
Trump officials viewed the move as essential to enforcing immigration law and reducing illegal immigration nationwide, per the New York Post.
“The Court does not cast doubt on the constitutionality of the expedited removal statute, nor on its longstanding application at the border,” Judge Cobb wrote in a 48-page opinion.
Cobb emphasized that migrants in the interior “have a weighty liberty interest in remaining here and therefore must be afforded due process under the Fifth Amendment.”
She added that the government “did not in any way adapt its procedures to this new group of people,” creating what she described as a “skimpy process” that could wrongly remove individuals.
“The government makes