On June 23, 2026, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 to restore the administration’s 2025 expansion of expedited removal nationwide.
The court vacated the district court stay that had frozen the policy since last summer. The case is Make the Road New York, et al. v. Markwayne Mullin, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, No. 25-5320. Judge Justin Walker wrote the main opinion. Judge Neomi Rao concurred. Judge Robert Wilkins concurred in part and dissented in part. Two Trump appointees made up the majority. The dissenting judge was an Obama appointee.
The D.C. Circuit opinion explains that DHS issued a January 21, 2025 designation authorizing expedited removal nationwide for certain aliens who cannot show at least two years of continuous physical presence in the United States. The designation reaches aliens who are inadmissible because they lack valid documents or entered through fraud or misrepresentation, who have not been admitted or paroled, and who cannot show that two-year presence. The opinion notes DHS exercised its discretion to apply expedited-removal authority to the maximum extent allowed by law.
The court also walks through the history: Congress created expedited removal in 1996, prior administrations had narrowed and expanded the tool, and DHS revived the broader nationwide scope after President Trump returned to office. The district court had stayed the expansion in August 2025 after concluding it likely violated due process. The D.C. Circuit disagreed and vacated that stay. That is the whole ballgame on the central question: The due-process theory that stopped the policy in district court did not hold up on appeal.
The restored policy allows DHS to reach covered noncitizens found anywhere in the United States if they cannot show the required two years of continuous physical presence. This change matters because the dispute was never just legal theory—it was about whether DHS could use the faster process across the country or remain boxed into narrower border-focused practice while cases pile up. The D.C. Circuit ruling pushes expedited removal beyond the border and into the interior for people the statute covers.
Some background on how the policy got here: The Federal Register notice for the designation became effective January 21, 2025. It restored expedited removal to the fullest extent authorized by Congress and covered certain noncitizens encountered anywhere in the United States who cannot show two years of continuous physical presence, including those deemed inadmissible on document or fraud/misrepresentation grounds. It also rescinded the Biden-era 2022 limitation to the extent that policy was inconsistent, restoring the broader Trump-era framework. The notice identified two newly covered categories: certain aliens encountered more than 100 air miles from an international land border, and certain aliens within 100 miles of the border who had been continuously present for at least 14 days but less than two years.
That official notice is why the appellate fight carried such broad stakes. DHS was not asking for a brand-new power invented by memo; it was defending a designation that Congress had already allowed the Secretary to make. DHS stated the change would enhance national security and public safety while reducing costs by speeding up immigration determinations—resulting in fewer years-long backlogs for people who never had a lawful basis to be here.
Make the Road New York had challenged both the 2025 designation and the January 23, 2025 memorandum implementing it. That challenge just lost on the core bottom line. One honest note so nobody gets ahead of the ruling: Expedited removal is not a no-limits deportation power. It applies to people covered by the statute and the designation, and asylum, credible-fear, and status claims remain legally relevant. But within those limits, the tool is real and it is back online nationwide.
