Dissenting judge slams ruling expanding Trump's deportation powers: 'Woefully inadequate'

A federal appeals court ruled 2-1 on Tuesday that the Trump administration could expand its expedited deportation process nationwide, and the dissenting judge issued a particularly scathing rebuke of the majority’s decision, The New York Times reported.

Decided in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the ruling also stipulated that federal immigration enforcement officials were not lawfully required to inform arrestees about their legal rights to contest deportation.

Judge Robert L. Wilkins, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, was the lone judge to dissent from the ruling, which he argued “violates due process.” His two judicial colleagues were both appointed by President Donald Trump.

“A procedure that can result in persons being deported pursuant to the expedited removal statute without even being asked how long they have been in the country might satisfy due process for persons encountered at the border, but it is woefully inadequate for persons encountered in the interior of the country,” Wilkins wrote in his dissent.

Last August, the Trump administration was thwarted in its attempt to nationally expand its expedited deportation process, which the Times noted was “typically reserved for people apprehended shortly after crossing the southern border.” A lower court ruled that the expansion “likely violated due process rights and risked wrongful detentions,” the Times reported.

That decision was overturned on Tuesday, however, giving way to the long-sought authority to expedite the deportation of millions of migrants across the country.

“It is not a requirement that the government explain how the individual might prevail,” reads the court’s majority opinion authored by Judge Justin R. Walker.