Judge Halts ICE Plan to Expand Fast-Track Deportations

A federal judge halted the Trump administration’s plan to expand fast-track deportations without the involvement of immigration courts. The “expedited removal” procedure was used to send immigrants back to Mexico who had been apprehended within 100 miles of the border, and who had crossed the border illegally within the past two weeks. In July, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials announced plans to eliminate those constraints, and instead using the fast-track process for any immigrant suspected of being undocumented in the U.S. for less than two years, Politico reports. U.S. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson blocked the policy shift, writing in a 126-page decision issued late Friday night that the Trump administration’s decision-making process for the change appeared to have violated federal law by failing to carry out a formal notice-and-comment practice required for major changes to federal rules.