A “no trespassing” sign outside of Northwest ICE Processing Center, also known as Northwest Detention Center. (Photo by Grace Deng/Washington State Standard)

WASHINGTON — Immigration advocacy groups sued the Trump administration Wednesday for dismissing cases in immigration courts in order to place immigrants in expedited removal for swift deportations without judicial review.

As the White House aims to achieve its goals of deporting 1 million immigrants without permanent legal status by the end of the year and a 3,000 arrests-per-day quota for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, immigrants showing up to court appearances have been arrested or detained.

President Donald Trump’s administration has moved to reshape immigration court, which is overseen by the Department of Justice, through mass firings of judges hired during President Joe Biden’s term and pressuring judges to clear the nearly 4 million case backlog.

The suit was brought in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by immigration legal and advocacy groups the National Immigrant Justice Center, Democracy Forward, Refugee and Immigrant Center for Legal Education and Services and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area.

The suit is a proposed class action representing 12 immigrants who filed asylum claims or other types of relief and had their cases dismissed and placed in expedited removal, subjecting them to a fast-track deportation. 

The individual plaintiffs, who all have pseudonyms in the court documents, had their asylum cases dismissed and were arrested and placed in detention centers far from their homes.

One plaintiff, E.C., fled Cuba after he was arrested and raped after he opposed that country’s government. He came to the U.S. in 2022 and applied for asylum and appeared for an immigration hearing in Miami.

At his hearing, DHS attorneys moved to dismiss his case “without notice and without articulating any reasoning whatsoever” and when he tried to leave the court, ICE arrested and detained him, according to the suit.

E.C. is currently detained in Tacoma, Washington, “thousands of miles from his family, including his U.S. citizen wife,” according to the suit.

New policies

The groups argue new policies from the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice are unlawful.

Those policies include the approval of civil arrests in immigration court, instructing ICE prosecutors to dismiss cases without following proper procedure, instructing ICE agents to put immigrants who have been in the country for more than two years in expedited removal and pursuing expedited removal when removal cases are ongoing.

“(DHS) has now adopted the policy that it will arrest a noncitizen and place them in expedited removal even if the immigration judge does not immediately grant dismissal or if the noncitizen reserves appeal of the dismissal—either of which means that the full removal proceedings are not over,” according to the suit. “In plain terms, DHS is disregarding both immigration judges who permit noncitizens an opportunity to oppose dismissal and the pendency of an appeal of the dismissal decision.”

The Trump administration has expanded the use of expedited removal, meaning that any immigrant without legal status who’s been in the U.S. for less than two years can be swiftly deported without appearing before an immigration judge.

“DHS and DOJ have implemented their new campaign of courthouse arrests through coordinated policies designed to strip noncitizens of their rights … exposing them to immediate arrest and expedited removal,” according to the suit.

The impact has been “severe,” according to the suit.

“Noncitizens, including most of the Individual Plaintiffs here, have been abruptly ripped from their families, lives, homes, and jobs for appearing in immigration court, a step required to enable them to proceed with their applications for permission to remain in this country,” according to the suit.

Detained immigrants’ stories

The suit details the plaintiffs’ circumstances.

One known as M.K., appeared in immigration court for her asylum hearing after she came to the U.S. in 2024 from Liberia, fleeing an abusive marriage and after she endured female genital mutilation.

DHS attorneys dismissed “her case without notice and, upon information and belief, without articulating any change in circumstances,” according to the suit.

“M.K. speaks a rare language, and because the interpretation was poor, she did not understand what was happening at the hearing,” according to the suit. “M.K. was arrested by ICE at the courthouse and detained; she was so distressed by what happened that she required hospitalization.”

She is currently detained in Minnesota. 

Another asylum seeker, L.H., came to the U.S. in 2022 from Venezuela, fleeing from persecution because of her sexual orientation, according to the suit. At her first immigration hearing in May, DHS moved to dismiss her case and has received an expedited removal notice.

ICE officers arrested L.H. after she had her hearing and she is currently detained in Ohio.