President Trump’s deportation team just got a green light from a federal appeals court.

On June 23, 2026, a divided D.C. Circuit panel revived the administration’s expanded expedited-removal policy, clearing a faster path to deport eligible illegal aliens.

The ruling lifted a freeze imposed by a Biden-appointed district judge who had boxed in the policy on due-process grounds.

DHS celebrated immediately.

Courthouse News Service reported that the case, Make the Road New York v. Mullin, split the appeals panel 2-1 in favor of the government. Judge Justin Walker wrote the court opinion, Judge Neomi Rao concurred in the judgment, and Judge Robert Wilkins dissented in part.

The decision reversed a stay that had blocked the Department of Homeland Security from applying expedited removal more broadly across the country.

ADVERTISEMENT

That stay came from U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, a Biden appointee.

The revived policy applies, with limits, to certain aliens who were not lawfully admitted or paroled and who cannot affirmatively show they have lived continuously in the United States for the two-year period before the inadmissibility determination.

In plain terms, if someone crossed illegally and cannot prove two years of continuous presence, that person can be fast-tracked for removal.

Fox News reported that the ruling lets immigration authorities quickly remove certain migrants found well beyond the border zone if they were not admitted or paroled and cannot meet that two-year bar. The outlet framed it as a major immigration win for the administration because the lower-court order had frozen the policy nationwide on due-process grounds.

Fox also noted the political and administrative timeline: President Trump expanded expedited removal during his first term, the Biden administration later rescinded that expansion, and DHS brought it back shortly after Trump returned to office in January 2025.

That is why this ruling matters beyond one lawsuit. It revives the enforcement architecture the administration built for faster removals instead of forcing every eligible case into the slowest possible channel.

The Biden-era version of the rule had penned expedited removal in tight.

According to the Federal Register, DHS rescinded the March 2022 limitation and restored expedited removal to the fullest extent Congress authorized. The 2025 notice designated two additional categories: certain aliens encountered more than 100 air miles from an international land border who had been continuously present for less than two years, and certain aliens encountered within 100 air miles who had been present at least 14 days but less than two years.

The notice also placed the burden on the alien in expedited removal to show continuous presence for the relevant period. DHS said the change would help handle the large volume of aliens unlawfully present in the United States, reduce government costs, and speed decisions for people not entitled to enter, remain, or receive protection from removal.

ADVERTISEMENT

The D.C. Circuit opinion explains that Congress created expedited removal three decades ago as a faster process and gave the executive branch discretion over designating certain aliens already inside the country for that process. The opinion says expedited removal can take days rather than years, while still excluding people who were admitted or paroled and those who can prove at least two straight years of U.S. presence.

The court said the executive expanded the policy in January 2025 to the maximum extent Congress allowed, while the district court later stayed that expansion after finding due-process concerns. The appellate majority disagreed with that freeze, allowing DHS to use the policy again while leaving individual unlawful applications of the policy to be challenged as individual officer errors, not as a defect in the written designation itself.

DHS General Counsel James Percival made that point after the ruling, saying DHS had been arbitrarily capped at 14 days even though the law reaches illegal aliens who entered illegally within the last two years.

The Trump-era expansion has now survived a major appellate fight and come out intact.

The history matters here. The first Trump administration expanded expedited removal, the Biden administration rescinded it, and Trump’s team reinstated it in 2025.

This week’s decision keeps that reinstatement alive against the legal challenge brought to kill it.

The White House press secretary promoted the ruling as a major deportation victory:

For now, the practical result is simple. The administration can again use a fast deportation tool nationwide instead of being locked inside a narrow border zone by a single district judge.

 

Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.