How have courts ruled on specific procedural changes (dismissals, mandatory detention) used to funnel people into expedited removal since 2025?
Executive summary
Federal courts since 2025 have repeatedly checked the Biden and Trump administrations’ attempts to speed removals by expanding expedited removal and by using tactics such as mass dismissals of pending cases, courthouse arrests, and categorical mandatory detention, with district and appeals courts finding serious procedural and due‑process defects and issuing injunctions or stays in multiple matters [1][2][3]. At the same time, the government has defended its authority to restore broad expedited removal designations and contends statutory text and prior precedent limit judicial intervention, setting up a continuing, piecemeal litigation battle over both substance and process [4][5].
1. Courts have enjoined or limited the 2025 expansion of expedited removal
Multiple federal judges have halted or narrowed the administration’s January 2025 effort to restore expedited removal to its broadest statutory reach, with district courts finding plaintiffs likely to prevail on Administrative Procedure Act and due‑process claims and at least one appellate panel declining to permit the expansion to proceed nationwide without proof adequate safeguards exist [1][3][6].
2. Mass dismissals of active immigration cases and courthouse arrests drew immediate legal pushback
Advocates and courts have framed the reported practice of dismissing pending removal cases en masse and then arresting individuals to slot them into expedited removal as an unprecedented tactic to bypass immigration‑court processes, and plaintiffs in Make the Road New York and related suits argue those techniques deny meaningful hearings and notice, a claim district judges have treated as plausibly meritorious [2][1].
3. Courts have pushed back on categorical mandatory detention policies
A July 2025 policy declaring anyone who entered without inspection categorically ineligible for bond and subject to mandatory detention prompted litigation and a federal court ruling blocking fast‑track components of the administration’s approach, as plaintiffs and civil‑rights groups argued the rule eliminated traditional procedural protections and risked unlawful summary removals [7][3].
4. Legal reasoning: APA violations, Fifth Amendment due process, and statutory interpretation
Courts key to these rulings have rested decisions on a combination of Administrative Procedure Act procedures—finding DHS failed to provide adequate notice‑and‑comment or to consider negative impacts—and Fifth Amendment due‑process concerns about summary removal away from border settings, even as other lines of precedent limit review for noncitizens seeking initial entry, creating doctrinal tension the judiciary is actively resolving [8][1][5].
5. Appellate decisions have been mixed but generally skeptical of rapid interior‑wide expansion
While the D.C. Circuit and other courts have recognized the government’s statutory authority to modify the designation applying expedited removal “at any time,” appellate panels have also refused to bless an unfettered interior expansion where systems appear unable to prevent “serious risks of erroneous summary removal,” leaving parts of district‑court relief intact while carving out narrow stays on credible‑fear procedures [4][3].
6. Competing narratives, policy aims, and hidden agendas shaping litigation
The administration frames restored expedited removal as a lawful, text‑based tool to manage migration and border security, invoking executive and DHS discretion, while immigrant‑rights groups and multiple courts highlight procedural shortcuts—dismissals, courthouse arrests, and categorical detention—as instruments to funnel people past immigration judges and thereby limit access to asylum and other relief; both positions reflect broader political goals: enforcement capacity versus adherence to procedural safeguards and access to counsel [4][2][7].
7. Where the courts have left questions unresolved
Courts have not conclusively settled whether interior‑wide use of expedited removal can coexist with constitutional due‑process protections for those already “in” the country, nor have they fully resolved the scope of judicial review over DHS’s designations when Congress conferred broad discretion—issues that lower‑court injunctions and piecemeal appellate rulings continue to leave open for higher courts to decide [1][5][6].