The U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit last week lifted a lower court’s stay on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s expedited removal plans for parolees.
The decision means the Trump administration could soon resume the process of expedited removal for migrants paroled under the Biden administration with “no right to be here,” according to the Center for Immigration Studies.
The three-judge panel based the decision on Bill Clinton-era regulations that give officers the authority to place some migrants in a faster deportation process, the panel said.
Deportation supporters call it a win for law and order, as it rights some of the wrongs allowed under the Biden administration’s abuse of the parole system.
Biden-era policies loosened the rules for parolees, allowing an estimated 2.9 million immigrants, many of whom were flown into the country, to enter under humanitarian parole programs.
If the ruling holds, it could give the Trump administration the green light to remove hundreds of thousands of unauthorized migrants who were admitted by President Joe Biden.
“The reason this has never come up before is because nobody ever did what Biden did with respect to parole before,” Andrew “Art” Arthur, a former immigration judge who is now at the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Washington Times.
James Percival, DHS’s general counsel, celebrated the “DC Circuit preserving our full expedited removal authority,” adding on X: “It’s not too late to take a $2,600 check and a free flight home!”
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! https://t.co/3BvgEYylCZ https://t.co/wVPUvbP8nv
— James Percival (@DHSGenCounsel) August 11, 2026
Immigration organizations filed a lawsuit against DHS trying to block their expedited removal. In an Aug. 1, 2025, order, Judge Jia Cobb ordered the Trump administration to halt the deportation directives.
The appellate panel rejected Cobb’s decision, ruling 3-0 that the plaintiffs don’t have legal standing to sue DHS because the groups didn’t show that a ruling in their favor would matter.
“Plaintiffs cannot seek relief that changes nothing for them,” the panel wrote in an unsigned per curiam opinion. “The plaintiffs here tried to do just that. So, we vacate the stay issued by the district court.”
The court withheld its mandate for the decision, likely to give the full D.C. Circuit Court a chance to review the ruling, The Washington Times reported.
Created by Congress in 1996, expedited removal allows the government to bypass court hearings for some immigrants, particularly those who arrive without proper admission documents or with fraudulent or bogus claims.
The have limited due process rights and can be quickly expelled by immigration officers, rather than requiring a full case in immigration court or a right to an appeal.
The appeals court referenced regulations issued in 1997 — six months after expedited removal became law.
The Clinton administration wrote regulations that define migrants who entered on parole as “arriving aliens” who could be subjected to expedited removal, according to Bloomberg Law.
Expedited removal had previously been limited to border cases, mostly based on policy decisions. But it’s not written into the law that it can’t be used for people on parole.
The immigration organizations, including the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, have challenged the legality of those earlier regulations in court, but the district court judge has not issued a ruling yet.
Upon President Trump’s return to office, DHS told officers to consider expedited removal for migrants who were paroled into the country under Biden-era humanitarian protections, including for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.
The Trump administration moved to end these protections shortly after taking office, and the Supreme Court sided with the government last year.
Historically, parole was typically reserved for those with an urgent medical need, family emergencies, to help U.S. authorities with a criminal investigation, urgent humanitarian reasons or a significant public benefit.
Parole grants temporary permission for a noncitizen to enter the country without a legal visa, but they don’t have formal legal status and remain in immigration limbo.
As the Fifth Circuit has explained, “parole creates something of legal fiction; although a paroled alien is physically allowed to enter the country, the legal status of the alien is the same as if he or she were still being held at the border waiting for his or her application for admission to be granted or denied.”
Biden’s DHS used it as a loophole to loosen border controls, allowing in Afghans, Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Ukrainians and Venezuelans who flew into the U.S. under special parole programs.
Other migrants who arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border and preregistered their arrival were also allowed to enter.
Congressional disclosures revealed that 95.8% of aliens who scheduled appointments using the app were subsequently paroled into this country, CIS said.
Now that they are here, immigrant rights groups believe they are entitled to full due process rights before they are removed.
Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan, an Obama appointee, and Judges Neomi Rao and Justin Walker, both Trump appointees, sat on the panel. The appeals court didn’t weigh in on the merits of the case, or if the memos themselves are legal, Bloomberg Law reported.
After President Trump returned to office, DHS issued a memorandum to immigration officers regarding the use of expedited removal on parolees. In February 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement shared the directive in an email.
The Trump administration based the directive on the 1997 regulations and told immigration officers to use expedited removal while the litigation over the Trump administration’s 2025 policies is ongoing.
CHIRLA filed a lawsuit challenging the memo and the email, per The Washington Times.
Since the group never challenged the Clinton-era regulation, the administration could cite that original regulation and get the same result, the appeals court said.
The court determined that undercut its legal standing to sue, The Washington Times reported, noting it wouldn’t matter if the email and memo were to be struck down.
