How did expedited removal and reinstatement procedures work during the Obama administration, and how often were they used?
Executive summary
Expedited removal and reinstatement were summary, out‑of‑court procedures the Department of Homeland Security used heavily under the Obama administration to remove people believed to lack lawful entry or who had previously been removed and returned; they allowed DHS officers to order removals without immigration‑court hearings but contained narrow procedural safeguards such as a credible‑fear screening for asylum claims [1] [2]. The Obama years saw these tools account for the majority of formal removals some years—combined expedited removal and reinstatement averaged roughly three‑quarters of removals across 2009–2016 and produced large year‑to‑year totals (examples: ~101,000 expedited removals and ~159,624 reinstatements in FY2013; expedited removals of about 188,000 in FY2014 are also reported) [3] [4] [5] [6].
1. What the procedures legally were and where they applied
Congress created expedited removal in 1996 and the statute authorizes DHS to summarily remove certain noncitizens who arrive without permission or who are encountered near a port of entry, subject to limited statutory protections; in practice expedited removal applied primarily to recent border crossers and those found at or near ports of entry, while reinstatement of removal applied when someone with a prior final removal returned without inspection and was removed based on the earlier order [1] [3]. Federal rules require that a person who expresses a fear of persecution receive a credible‑fear screening and, if found credible, be placed into formal removal proceedings where asylum can be sought; unaccompanied minors have statutory exemptions from expedited removal [1] [2].
2. How the process worked on the ground
Expedited removal is an administrative process run by DHS officers rather than immigration judges; an agent can interview and determine removability, issue the removal order, and effectuate deportation without a hearing before the immigration court system, and those subject to reinstatement are removed based on a prior order with similarly limited opportunity for judicial review unless a fear claim is raised [1] [2]. Critics said the process substitutes a frontline enforcement officer for adversarial adjudication and denies counsel, appeal, and full evidentiary procedures typical of court proceedings, while DHS and some analysts defended the streamlined tool as necessary to process large numbers of recent crossers at the border [7] [8] [9].
3. Scale and frequency under Obama: headline numbers
Federal and independent reporting shows the Obama administration removed very large numbers through summary mechanisms: DHS reported hundreds of thousands of formal removals annually and independent analysts documented that in 2013 about 363,000 deportations (83% that year) occurred without an immigration judge via expedited removal or reinstatement, while DHS and NGOs reported roughly 101,000 expedited removals and 159,624 reinstatements in FY2013 and about 188,000 expedited removals in FY2014 in some compilations [4] [3] [5]. Over the eight years, summary removals (expedited plus reinstatement) made up roughly 58–84% of formal removals in any given year and averaged about 74% across 2009–2016, meaning most formal removals did not involve a judge [6].
4. Why officials used these tools and how usage shifted
Analysts from the Migration Policy Institute and the American Immigration Council say the Obama administration redirected enforcement resources to the border and favored putting recent crossers into formal removal pathways—often via out‑of‑court mechanisms—rather than voluntary returns, which raised the count of formal removals processed through expedited procedures [9] [10]. Supporters argued this targeted criminals and recent crossers; critics such as the ACLU argued the administration prioritized speed over individualized due process and expanded the reach of nonjudicial removals beyond appropriate circumstances [9] [7] [8].
5. Limits of available reporting and lingering disputes
Public sources converge on the pattern—heavy reliance on expedited removal and reinstatement—but differ in emphasis and year selection, producing a range of headline numbers; scholars and advocates dispute whether the tradeoff between speed and due process was justified and whether DHS consistently honored procedural safeguards like credible‑fear screening in practice, a question that reporting alone cannot fully resolve without case‑level audits [7] [2] [6].