A federal judge on Friday blocked Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “expedited removal” deportation strategy to detain paroled immigrants as quickly as possible.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb of the District of Columbia ruled that the Trump administration’s use of expedited removal exceeded the Department of Homeland Security’s legal authority, in addition to being arbitrary and capricious. The order temporarily halts the federal government’s efforts to deport immigrants previously paroled into the United States at a port of entry.
Cobb specifically blocked three actions: a DHS memo dated Jan. 23 directing immigration officials to apply expedited removal as broadly as possible; an ICE directive dated Feb. 18 authorizing officers to consider expedited removal for “paroled arriving aliens”; and a DHS notice dated March 25 terminating the Biden-era parole programs for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans.
The court took issue with the administration’s actions to dismiss parole immigrants’ pending proceedings in immigration court and proceed to arrest them outside the courtroom afterward.
“This case’s underlying question, then, asks whether parolees who escaped oppression will have the chance to plead their case within a system of rules,” Cobb wrote in the 84-page ruling. “Or, alternatively, will they be summarily removed from a country that, as they are swept up at checkpoints and outside courtrooms, often by plainclothes officers without explanation or charges, may look to them more and more like the countries from which they tried to escape?”
Such an incident occurred in June, when New York City Comptroller Brad Lander was arrested for refusing to leave an immigrant whose case was dismissed moments earlier. Lander and his companion were both restrained by masked plainclothes officers as seen in a viral video.
A growing number of Democratic lawmakers have since crafted legislation to bar ICE officers from wearing masks, which the agency says are used to protect its officers from getting doxxed.
Friday’s order is estimated to affect “hundreds of thousands of paroled aliens,” Cobb wrote.
The Trump administration criticized the ruling, saying it defies a Supreme Court ruling from May that upheld the termination of parole status for more than 530,000 illegal immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
“Judge Cobb is flagrantly ignoring the United States Supreme Court, which upheld expedited removals of illegal aliens by a 7-2 majority,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “This ruling is lawless and won’t stand.”
Whine, bitch, whine!
