A federal appeals court affirmed on Tuesday the authority of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to use expedited removal procedures for foreign nationals paroled into the United States under Biden-era policies.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated a lower court’s blocking of the Trump administration directives, which had put hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela up for fast-tracked deportations.
It was a unanimous opinion from a three-judge panel, which emphasized it was not ruling on the legality of the directives—only whether advocacy groups that sued over them had standing to do so.
“They do not,” read the per curiam order, meaning the opinion was issued collectively by the panel and not authored by a single judge.
Advocacy groups, including the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, sued the Trump administration over a January 2025 DHS memo and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) email a month later that similarly suggested expedited removal of paroled foreign nationals.
The groups sought relief from these directives, claiming they violated the Fifth Amendment’s due process protections and the Administrative Procedures Act, which governs the process of federal agencies to propose and adopt procedures.
However, the appeals court said the groups failed to show a ruling in their favor would end expedited removals. Plus, other pathways for quick deportations still exist, the judges noted.
Even if the number of expedited removals increased as a result of the DHS and ICE directives, it does not mean “getting rid of [them] will reverse that trend.”
“The requested relief would change nothing,” the ruling said. “Plaintiffs cannot seek relief that changes nothing for them. The plaintiffs here tried to do just that.”
DHS general counsel James Percival wrote in a post on X: “Big win in the DC Circuit preserving our full expedited removal authority. It’s not too late to take a $2,600 check and a free flight home!”
The Biden administration in October 2022 launched the parole program, which allowed any foreign national to lawfully enter the United States. More than 532,000 individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela were permitted into the country until President Donald Trump halted the program in the early days of his second term.
In March 2025, DHS issued a notice to terminate the parole status of foreign nationals from the aforementioned countries, making them eligible for expedited removal.
Unlike regular removal proceedings, which gives foreign nationals a chance for a hearing before an immigration judge and potential relief to stay in the country, a fast-tracked deportation allows the federal government to remove aliens “without further hearing or review.”
The parole program for Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela nationals “allowed hundreds of thousands of UNVETTED aliens to circumvent the traditional parole process,” DHS said in June 2025. “Known terrorists, gang members, convicted murderers, have all entered this country ‘legally’ under this program.”
