The Daily Fuckup

A divided federal appeals court on June 23 cleared the way for the Trump administration to keep using its expanded expedited-removal policy while a legal challenge plays out. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated a district court stay that had paused the 2025 designation and related memorandum nationwide, leaving the policy in effect for now. The panel did not decide whether the policy is lawful on the merits.

The decision matters because expedited removal is a stripped-down deportation process. Under the challenged designation, immigration authorities can use it more broadly inside the country than they could before, subject to statutory limits that include exceptions for some people who were admitted or paroled and protections tied to continuous physical presence. If a person is not covered by an exception, the government can move them through removal on a faster track than ordinary immigration court proceedings.

The appeals court’s order changes the status quo, but it does not settle the larger fight over how far the statute reaches. The plaintiffs argue the administration pushed the process too deep into the interior and used a procedure that is too thin for that setting. The administration says Congress already gave it authority to apply expedited removal to the maximum extent the law allows. The panel left those questions for later.

For now, the practical result is simple: the government can keep applying the expanded rule unless another court intervenes. The case remains alive, and the underlying dispute over the scope of expedited removal is still heading through the courts. The June 23 order bought the administration time; it did not give it a final win.