A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Donald Trump administration’s swift deportations of undocumented immigrants, upholding civil rights groups that argued the measure is a violation of due process.
In January, Trump reinstated “immediate removal” of immigrants, a policy he already implemented in his first term (2017-2021) that allows for quick deportations of undocumented immigrants who cannot prove they have been in the country for two years or more in a row, without a hearing.
Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, D.C., issued an opinion criticizing the measure, a pillar of Trump’s promised mass deportation campaign, opining that it “prioritizes speed” and “will inevitably lead the government to wrongfully deport people through this truncated process.”
The policy of rapid deportations was denounced by the American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU), the main NGO in defense of immigrants in the U.S., on behalf of another pro-immigrant entity, Make The Road New York, who asked to block its effect, to which the judge has agreed.
In the 48-page opinion, published Friday night, the judge says she is not questioning the constitutionality of the original, long-standing policy of rapid deportations to deport immigrants near the southern border who have been in the U.S. for only a few days, but rather its expansion.
Cobb points out that “in applying the statute to a huge group of people living in the interior of the country who have not previously been subject to expedited removal, the government must ensure due process,” the document states.
The complaint argued precisely that the measure violates the Fifth Amendment, which establishes the right to due process, and the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.
Adds Cobb, “In defending this scant process, the government makes a truly astonishing argument: that those who entered the country illegally are not entitled to a Fifth Amendment process, but must accept whatever grace Congress gives them.”
“If that were correct, not only non-citizens, we would all be at risk,” the judge apostilled, according to information from EFE.
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