Trump deportation policy suffers big legal setbacks
By: Lauren Villagran
USA Today
..... President Donald Trump recently has suffered three major legal setbacks that expects say could put his plans for mass deportation at risk - at least until a higher court step in.
.....
Federal judges in separate cases have ruled against the president's immigration enforcement tactics and sided with immigrant advocates who have challenged their legality.
..... Judges blocked the deportation of some migrant children who crossed the border alone, forbade the rapid removal of immigrant who have been in the country for more than two years, and stopped the administration's use of an arcane law to deport people accused of being gang members without due process.
..... Trump administration officials and supporters have slammed the decisions of so-called "activist judges" who they say are overstepping their authority to prevent the president's enforcement of the nation's immigration laws.
..... The combination of three judicial punches could put at risk the president;s plans to deport as many as 1 million people per year.
..... The final decision in each of the cases likely lies with the Supreme Court, through, and 'the Trump administration has tended to fare much better at the Supreme Court than in the lower courts," said Michael Kagan, director of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Immigraiton Clinic.
..... On August 29, [2025] U.S. District Judge Jim Cobb of the federal court for the Distinct of Columbia put the administration's fast-track deportations on hold, saying the use of "expedited removal" in the interior violated immigrants' due process rights.
..... The White House ahs sought to speed up the deportation process.
..... Cobb called it a "skimpy process" that could put not only non-citizens but everyone at risk.
..... On August 31, [2025] also in the DC federal court, District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting ICE from deporting Guatemalan children who came to the outcry without a parent or guardian.
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The children were already aboard deportation planes in El Paso and Harlington, Texas, when the National Immigration Law Center field a request for an emergency injunction.
..... Then on September 2, [2025] a majority of federal appellate judges in the famously conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Trump's use of the Alien enemies Act of 1798 to tepidly deport people accused of being members of a violent Venezuelan prison gang called Tren de Aragua.
..... In an 2-1 decisions, Circuit Judge Lesilie Southwick said there is no evidence that
mass immigration in recent years constituted "an armed, organized force or forces."
..... Trump officials and supports of the administration's immigration crackdown disagreed with the judges' findings.
..... After the appeals court ruling, Trump aide Stephen Miller said "the judicial coup continues," in a post on X.
.... After Trump administration already faces an uphill road. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deported roughly 200,000 people since Trump took office in Janaya, [2025] according to agency data.