Democrats and liberal media are crying for “Due Process!” in their efforts to demonize the Trump Administration’s efforts to swiftly remove illegal aliens from the U.S. – but, in FY2013, 83% of the illegal aliens deported by Democrat President Obama weren’t given a trial.
In Fiscal Year (FY) 2013, when the Obama Administration set a record by deporting 438,421 illegal aliens, four of five of them were deported without appearing before a judge, due to the administration’s increased use of two non-standard procedures that circumvent the court system:
- Expedited Removal: Immigration officers and agents may order the removal of an alien who is inadmissible because the individual does not possess valid entry documents or is inadmissible for fraud or misrepresentation of material fact; or the removal of an alien who has not been admitted or paroled in the U.S. and who proven to the satisfaction of an immigration officer that he or she had been continuously present in the U.S. for at least two years. (INA § 235(b)(1)(A)).
- Reinstatement of Final Removal Orders: A foreign national who is found to have reentered the United States illegally after being removed or leaving under voluntary departure can have their prior removal order reinstated by DHS. The reinstatement order is not subject to review by an immigration judge.
193,032 of the 438,421 illegal aliens deported by Obama in FY2013 were expedited removals, while 170,247 were reinstatements:
- Standard removals, voluntary departures, and expedited removals of criminal aliens ("other removals") accounted for 17%.
- Expedited removals comprised 44% of those removed.
- Reinstatements accounted for almost 39% of all removals.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), “the Secretary of Homeland Security may apply expedited removal to any alien who has not been admitted or paroled into the United States and who cannot show that he or she has been continuously present for two years.”
In all, Obama removed 363,279 illegal aliens using these two methods, denying them access to the U.S. judicial system.
The increased use of these two method of removal was the continuation of a decade-long trend, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) noted at the time:
“Since FY2004, the number of aliens subject to expedited removal increased approximately threefold and the number of reinstatements of removal orders more than doubled.”
….
“Since FY2010 the increase in the total number of removals has been driven exclusively by the increases in expedited removals of arriving aliens and reinstatements.”
An expedited removal order issued by a DHS officer is equivalent to a removal order issued by an immigration judge.
The government may also deport, without having the decision on removability made by an immigration judge, any illegal alien who has been convicted of an aggravated felony.
Until FY2013, the majority of aliens apprehended along the Southwest border were not subject to the standard removal procedures or expedited removal.
The standard removal process under INA §240 is a trial-like proceeding in which an attorney from DHS presents the government's case for why the alien should be removed and an immigration judge from the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) determines whether the alien should be removed.
