policy memo<\/a> circulated at ICE last February, which explained how and when expedited removal should be used.<\/p>\nThe guidance instructed agents that if someone apprehended by immigration agents professed to have been in the country longer than two years, they should be given \u201ca brief but reasonable opportunity\u201d to provide documentation to avoid being placed in expedited removal. Judge Walker wrote in the opinion on Tuesday that as long as migrants are provided that \u201creasonable opportunity,\u201d the requirements of the law had been fulfilled.<\/p>\n
In his dissent, Judge Wilkins wrote that the Department of Homeland Security had not disputed that in using the policy, it had deported a number of individuals who had been in the country longer than two years. He stressed that guidance given to immigration officers did not require them to ask how long someone had lived in the country, or inform them of their rights to challenge their removal.<\/p>\n
\u201cA 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,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Make the Road New York, a nonprofit immigrant advocacy group that brought the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Doris Meissner, a director at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute and a top immigration official in the Clinton and Reagan administrations, said the ruling gave the federal government a \u201cbroad sweeping power\u201d that could incite fear among many immigrants.<\/p>\n
Ms. Meissner said she was concerned that immigration officers could sweep up people who could not immediately provide evidence that they had been living in the country for longer than two years. She said it was also unclear what proof people might need to carry at all times.<\/p>\n
In a statement, James Percival, the general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security, celebrated the ruling. He wrote that the department had long \u201carbitrarily limited expedited removal\u201d though the law allows it to be used more broadly.<\/p>\n
He said the appeals court had \u201cvindicated\u201d the Trump administration\u2019s practices.<\/p>\n
Anand Balakrishnan, a lawyer representing Make the Road New York, argued during the hearing last year that such groups had been in the dark about how the procedure had been used. He said that the decision to give undocumented migrants an opportunity to state their case, and avoid being placed into fast-track deportation, was being made by individual agents with little oversight.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have any clue how this process is supposed to work in practice, particularly when the only check on it is that individual officer who is supposedly, in their discretion, providing them with time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr. Balakrishnan said the aggressive expansion of the policy effectively left everyone without full legal status vulnerable to being placed on a fast track for deportation, including those who had lived in the country for decades and had deep ties to their communities or to U.S. citizens. <\/p>\n
But Mr. Balakrishnan had faced skeptical questioning from both Judge Rao and Judge Walker. At one point, Judge Walker appeared to dismiss the case as an attempt to stall the deportation process nationally, rather than maintain what had for decades been a more circumscribed use of the expedited removal process.<\/p>\n
Judge Walker observed that all of the people challenging the policy were in the country illegally.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo whether they get expedited removal or nonexpedited removal, the proper result is removal, right?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know whether the proper result is removal,\u201d Mr. Balakrishnan said. \u201cI mean, the proper result would be procedures to access the relief that Congress has afforded them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Madeleine Ngo contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal appeals court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to resume using a fast-track deportation process throughout…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[89417,106643,17077,9207,9205,11595,9204,106644,106645,106648,9,11,10,106646,106647,11771,17080,1876],"class_list":["post-277421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-appeals-courts-us","tag-childs","tag-courts-and-the-judiciary","tag-deportation","tag-illegal-immigration","tag-immigration-and-customs-enforcement-us","tag-immigration-and-emigration","tag-j-michelle","tag-millett","tag-neomi","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-patricia-a","tag-rao","tag-suits-and-litigation-civil","tag-supreme-court-us","tag-united-states-politics-and-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}