The Trump administration has expanded the use of fast-track deportation powers in unprecedented ways to remove unauthorized immigrants in as little as a few hours, on the decision of individual Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel, and without judicial review. This transforms what previously had been a more limited authority for recent arrivals at the border into a far-reaching and potent deportations tool.

The process, known as expedited removal, historically had applied primarily to unauthorized immigrants who had just arrived across a U.S. land or sea border. The administration has sought to expand use of the fast-track authority nationwide, has reportedly used it to order removals of longtime U.S. residents, and has orchestrated maneuvers to use it on individuals previously covered by various temporary protections as well as those with asylum cases pending at immigration courts and asylum offices.

The expansion of expedited removal, which is being challenged in court, offers the administration a major tool to meet its goal of 1 million deportations annually as well as reduce the backlog of almost 4 million removal cases pending in immigration court.

Under the administration’s expanded vision, the powers could, in theory, be applied to at least 2.5 million noncitizens, according to Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimates. This includes approximately 1 million migrants who arrived at the southwest border without authorization and were allowed into the United States during the second half of the Biden administration, as well as 1.5 million noncitizens previously granted temporary protections such as humanitarian parole, whom the Trump administration argues are now eligible for expedited removal. The MPI estimates cannot model the entire number of noncitizens who may be subject to expedited removal, for example the population of those who evaded arrest after crossing the border without authorization.

The Trump administration has vigorously justified the expanded use of fast-track removal authority as a much-needed policy to reverse what it terms the migrant “invasion” that occurred under President Joe Biden. Immigration lawyers and others warn the procedure, which comes with limited due-process protections and inhibits immigrants’ quick access to legal counsel, exacerbates the odds that asylum seekers’ fears of persecution will be overlooked—and will also inevitably scoop up some U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, with important costs to civil liberties and constitutional rights.

This article reviews the history of expedited removal and the Trump administration’s efforts to expand its application.

A Contested Interpretation of a Longstanding Authority

Congress authorized expedited removal three decades ago, with the passage of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Since then, more than 3 million noncitizens have been removed under the authority—chiefly individuals encountered at the border or inland ports of entry (such as airports).

President Donald Trump in his first term sought to extend the process nationwide but was slowed by a federal court, and his administration ultimately moved its attention to COVID-19-related border challenges. Just 17 noncitizens were removed through expanded expedited removal procedures during the first Trump term. Early in its second term, the administration quickly revived its more muscular interpretation of the authority, but a federal judge in August blocked geographic and other expansions. The Justice Department swiftly appealed, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit may soon reinstate some of the changes; one member of the three-judge panel considering the nationwide expansion case has indicated he would have already removed the block.

Yet even if the nationwide expansion remains halted, DHS can use expedited removal within a 100-mile zone of U.S. land and sea borders, an area that encompasses two-thirds of the U.S. population. Its mission may be aided by a recent Supreme Court order allowing authorities to apprehend noncitizens to check their immigration status based on their race or ethnicity, language, or type of work.

Expansion of Expedited Removal Was Slow, then Sudden

Following a period of high-profile and increasing unauthorized arrivals at sea and land, Congress in 1996 established expedited removal for certain noncitizens who arrived without valid entry documents and had been in the country for less than two years. While the statute grants leeway in using the authority, administrations mostly used it for recent border arrivals, concerned that its application in the U.S. interior would raise significant operational and civil liberties concerns.

It quickly accounted for a significant share of removals (but not necessarily of all deportations; see Box 1). The fast-track process accounted for more than half of removals during the Biden administration, from fiscal year (FY) 2022 to FY 2024 (see Figure 1).

Pre-1996, all unauthorized arrivals were processed for removal in immigration court, where mounting backlogs and asylum applications led to lengthening proceedings. With the advent of expedited removal, officials could order noncitizens deported without a hearing before an immigration judge; people making asylum claims were to be quickly screened by asylum officers. The Clinton administration used the authority mostly for migrants arriving without authorization on planes, boats, and at official border posts. Its usage rose rapidly, from 23,000 deportations in FY 1997 to 89,000 in FY 1999, when it accounted for 49 percent of all 183,000 removals.

Subsequent administrations expanded the use of expedited removal, in limited ways. In 2002, President George W. Bush’s administration extended use to migrants who arrived without authorization by sea and had been in the United States for less than two years. In 2004, the process was extended to migrants who had crossed a land border without authorization, had been in the United States for less than 14 days, and had been apprehended within 100 miles of the border.

The Obama administration ramped up use of expedited removal, especially after an increased emphasis on border enforcement in 2011. In FY 2013, DHS conducted 198,000 expedited removals (the most ever in a fiscal year), accounting for 46 percent of all 432,000 removals (also the most in one year). In 2017, before leaving office, the Obama administration extended expedited removals to Cubans; previously, Cubans who reached U.S. soil had been granted parole to enter.

Border Policies Move into the U.S. Interior

The Trump administration in 2019, during its first term, expanded expedited removal across the U.S. interior. The policy was initially blocked by then U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson (now a Supreme Court justice) who ruled the administration had not followed proper administrative procedures. In 2020, an appeals court reversed her order, finding that the administration was not required to provide advance notice of the policy. Though cleared to resume the expanded use during its final months in office, the administration by then had largely turned elsewhere; amid the COVID-19 pandemic, DHS shifted enforcement focus to border expulsions under the Title 42 public health order.

In 2022, Biden rescinded the Trump-era expansion to the U.S. interior and instead focused on using expedited removal at the border, especially after the May 2023 end of Title 42. At that point, expedited removals accounted for the most removals since the Obama administration; 194,000 of all 330,000 removals in FY 2024 (59 percent) were under the fast-track authority.

Upon retaking office, Trump sought to pick up where he had left off. On his second day in office, he expanded expedited removal to “the full scope of its statutory authority.” DHS has not released data on the number of expedited removals carried out from the U.S. interior since then, but the vast majority of migrants arriving at the border have been placed in expedited removal. With record low unauthorized border arrivals, Border Patrol agents have also been assigned to assist with interior arrests and removals, bringing with them their knowledge of the fast-track process.

What Expedited Removal Gives the Trump Administration

Like its predecessors, the Trump administration is relying on expedited removal to increase deportations quickly, unimpeded by lengthy adjudications or judicial review. Issuing an expedited removal order can take just a matter of hours: An immigration official quickly determines whether a noncitizen has a lawful basis for remaining in the United States; if not, the official serves a removal order. There is no administrative hearing or right to an appeal. Once approved by a supervisor, expedited removal orders are final and not reviewable.

In many cases, noncitizens opt to avoid expedited removal by voluntarily leaving the United States without receiving a formal removal order and the consequences it brings, including a bar on re-entry for at least five years. Hundreds of thousands of noncitizens have taken voluntary return over the years.

Proponents of expedited removal underscore the fact that typical removal proceedings in immigration court take more than two years on average, and twice as long in an asylum case, before appeals. Noncitizens wait a decade or more for an asylum interview at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which handles claims by individuals not in removal proceedings. These delays are due to record backlogs, which swelled after historic border arrivals in recent years. (By law, asylum cases are supposed to be completed within six months, but this provision has been violated for years). Approximately 3.8 million cases were pending at immigration courts as of June 2025, of which 63 percent (2.4 million) were asylum cases. Another 1.5 million asylum applications were pending at USCIS as of March. By expanding expedited removal, the administration appears to be trying to avoid adding more cases to these backlogs.

How the Net Has Expanded

Coming into office, the Trump administration pledged to deport a record 1 million unauthorized immigrants per year, and expedited removal was a ready tool to meet this aim. An immediate target: unauthorized immigrants who came during the Biden administration, even if they had been explicitly allowed into the country. A hallmark of the Biden administration’s immigration approach was to use humanitarian parole and other legal processes to allow certain individuals into the United States on a temporary basis, providing protection from deportation and access to a work permit but not a pathway to a green card, in order to relieve record pressure at the border.

During the two-year period beginning in September 2023, MPI estimates that approximately 1 million migrants were released into the United States after arriving without authorization between border posts. An additional 937,000 individuals were, from January 2023 to December 2024, permitted entry through the CBP One app, which the Biden administration used to allow asylum seekers and others to schedule appointments at official border crossings. Another 532,000 noncitizens were admitted through the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan (CHNV) parole program from October 2022 through December 2024. The Trump administration terminated or ended these grants of humanitarian parole and now seeks to place former recipients in expedited removal. It has argued the law allows it to do so regardless of when the parolees entered the country. As such, these groups could theoretically be facing the prospect of fast-track deportation.

Noncitizens who entered through parole programs or via CBP One were required to provide their contact information and U.S. addresses. This now makes it easier for authorities to track and arrest them.

Furthermore, the administration has sought to end some grants of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and deferred action, which may make more people subject to expedited removal. Litigation and ensuing court orders have resulted in a confusing legal landscape, with courts blocking the termination of TPS for more than 900,000 Venezuelans and Haitians, for example. It is unclear whether the Trump administration will allow the renewal of lapsed protections for groups such as Ukrainians who fled the 2022 Russian invasion. These and other populations are not included in MPI’s calculations of those who could be subjected to expedited removal, in part because of the likelihood of overlap with parolees as well as the ongoing litigation.

Notably, expedited removal has historically been applied principally to Mexican and Central American nationals, and it is much easier to quickly remove someone across the U.S.-Mexico border than fly them to a faraway, overseas location. But as the origins of irregular immigrants have diversified in recent years, the administration’s attempts to quickly deport people through expedited removal could become complicated.

Arrests at Immigration Courts and Asylum Offices

In another shift, authorities are targeting noncitizens during their scheduled appearance in immigration court or their USCIS asylum merits interview. When a noncitizen appears for these hearings, government attorneys have in some cases moved to dismiss the case, arguing that doing so allows them to place the individual in expedited removal. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have waited in the hallways to arrest people immediately upon the case’s dismissal.

The actions have a two-fold benefit from the administration’s perspective, helping reach its deportation goal and reducing the asylum case backlog. In expedited removal, migrants expressing fear of return are referred to a USCIS asylum officer for a screening known as a credible fear interview, which can be scheduled as soon as 24 hours after arrest. Interviews are typically held by phone while an individual is detained. Asylum seekers who do not pass this interview can seek a judge’s review, which may be scheduled in the subsequent days. If a judge affirms the individual is not eligible for asylum, they may be immediately removed without further right to appeal.

On the other hand, individuals who pass the credible fear interview are taken out of expedited removal and placed in immigration court proceedings where they may apply for asylum. As such, some migrants whose court cases were dismissed so they could be put in expedited removal may end up back in immigration court, essentially restarting the process. Still a significant percentage appears to be screened out and removed.

Arrests of Long-Settled Immigrants

According to MPI analysis, most of the 13.7 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States as of mid-2023 have lived here for at least a decade. While the general understanding had been that noncitizens who have resided in the United States for more than two years are exempt from being placed in expedited removal, the Trump administration has pushed the legal boundaries. ICE has argued in court that certain noncitizens may be placed in expedited removal past the two-year mark, depending on how they initially entered the country. For instance, certain noncitizens released into the country under a monitoring program and told to check in at an ICE office may years later be placed in expedited removal, ICE said in an internal directive.

Unauthorized immigrants who have lived in the United States for long periods have also reportedly been summarily deported. In one case, a Guatemalan woman who had lived in the United States for 30 years was placed in expedited removal after a traffic stop in Phoenix. In another, a Mexican mother and her adult son, both of whom had been in the country for a decade, were deported 24 hours after their arrest during a traffic stop in Texas. Immigration attorneys have reported other cases, indicating that these may be more than isolated events.

One reason these cases may be occurring is that the burden in expedited removal is on the individual—not DHS—to show that they have lawful immigration status, have been in the country for more than two years, or have an asylum claim. This burden and the speed of the process can lead to serious errors. In the past, U.S. citizens have been removed through expedited removal, such as in a 2000 case when Sharon McKnight, a U.S. citizen with a mental disability, was deported to Jamaica a day after returning to the United States from a long trip.

The lack of legal representation can also exacerbate challenges for noncitizens who may not know how to exercise their rights. Most individuals facing deportation lack legal representation, and many have been issued removal orders before they can make a phone call. Lack of language interpretation can also create challenges, since approximately one in every 12 U.S. residents—including millions of U.S. citizens—had limited English proficiency as of 2023.

Many of these issues have been persistent. In 2005, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom found that 15 percent of requests for an asylum interview were not referred to asylum officers; follow-up reviews in 2016 and 2025 found continued issues, but did not quantify the lack of referrals. “[F]lawed screening and documentation practices, a lack of training and quality control,” and other issues “remain unaddressed 20 years later,” the commission concluded in 2025.

Court Challenges to Trump’s Expansion

The Trump administration’s expansion of expedited removal was quickly challenged in court by groups alleging the moves exceed statutory authority. In August, a federal judge in Washington, DC blocked the application of expedited removal to parolees, ruling the government had exceeded its authority. Days later, the same judge blocked the expansion of expedited removal into the U.S. interior, finding that the administration’s policies violated constitutional due-process rights. The Justice Department has appealed both rulings. In New York City, a federal judge in September allowed the administration to continue arresting noncitizens at immigration court hearings but made it harder for immigration judges to dismiss cases, declaring they needed to provide individualized reasons.

While the expansion of fast-track removal authority remains paused, officials can continue to apply expedited removal to migrants encountered within 14 days of their arrival and within 100 miles of U.S. borders, as has been policy for more than two decades. This 100-mile border zone includes the largest U.S. cities—New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston—as well as all or the vast majority of 11 states. In total, about two-thirds of the U.S. population (213 million people) reside in this zone.

A Slippery Slope

Expedited removal is key to the administration’s goal of quickly removing a maximum number of deportable noncitizens with minimal judicial scrutiny, while also addressing a large case backlog.

This approach contains inherent risks. ICE officers are being compelled to meet arrest targets, and this year the administration aims to hire more than 10,000 new officers, many of whom will arrive with no immigration experience. Combined with the Supreme Court’s order allowing stops based on characteristics such as race and ethnicity, language spoken, and workplace, there is a real risk of racial profiling and arresting U.S. citizens. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh contemplated this possibility in concurring with that order, which allowed federal enforcement operations to resume in Los Angeles. A U.S. citizen or other legally present immigrant may conceivably be caught up in enforcement, Kavanaugh reasoned, but the identity check will be fast and “that individual will be free to go after the brief encounter.”

Left unsaid is that the guarantee of a quick release necessitates all U.S. residents—including citizens and green-card holders—carry proof of their status at all times. The administration’s actions, with the Supreme Court’s assent, will almost surely lead to cases in which U.S. citizens are detained for long periods of time because they cannot quickly prove their status.

As such, by using fact-track removals as its default deportation process, the Trump administration may be changing not just the system for removing unauthorized immigrants, but altering the way in which many U.S. residents now must interact with their government.

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