D.C. Circuit Largely Upholds Ruling Blocking 2025 Trump Proclamation from Enabling Summary Deportations

A federal appeals court has largely upheld a ruling blocking the Trump administration from using a Jan. 20, 2025, presidential proclamation and related Department of Homeland Security guidance to summarily deport migrants at the southern border without access to the asylum process. In a decision issued April 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the administration cannot use those measures to bypass immigration procedures that Congress wrote into federal law.

The case challenged Presidential Proclamation No. 10888, titled “Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion,” which President Donald Trump issued on Jan. 20, 2025. The proclamation invoked 8 U.S.C. Section 1182(f), a law that gives the president power to suspend the entry of noncitizens. DHS then issued field guidance telling immigration personnel that people who “cross[] between the ports of entry on the southern land border” were “not permitted to apply for asylum,” while also creating summary removal pathways outside the normal statutory system.

The appeals court said those executive actions went too far because they conflicted with the Immigration and Nationality Act, the main federal immigration law enacted by Congress. Another provision of that law, 8 U.S.C. Section 1158, says a noncitizen who is physically present in or arriving in the United States may apply for asylum. And the INA lays out detailed screening and removal procedures, including under 8 U.S.C. Section 1225, for handling people encountered at the border.

Writing for the court, Judge Michelle Childs said the president’s entry-suspension authority does not let the executive branch create a separate deportation system that overrides those statutory protections. “The INA does not allow the President to remove Plaintiffs under summary removal procedures of his own making,” the majority said.

The panel — Judges Childs, Cornelia Pillard and Justin Walker — affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the plaintiffs. It also upheld the vacatur, or nullification, of the DHS guidance to the extent that it replaced the immigration procedures required by statute with what the court called extra-statutory summary expulsion procedures. Walker concurred in part and dissented in part.

The ruling largely leaves in place a July 2, 2025, decision by U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss, who had already ruled in part for the challengers and vacated the guidance to the extent it supplanted the statutory framework. The appeal was brought in Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services v. Mullin.

In practical terms, the decision affects how DHS and border agents can operate going forward. The government cannot continue using the challenged summary procedures to deny access to asylum, withholding of removal and related protections under the INA for migrants encountered at the southern border. The court’s reasoning was straightforward: Congress can set immigration procedures, and the president’s power to suspend entry does not include the power to replace those procedures with a new removal regime.

The lawsuit was filed by the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, known as RAICES; Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center; the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project; and individual asylum seekers. They were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and allied counsel.

The ruling is limited, however, to future enforcement. It stops the government from using the challenged expulsion procedures going forward, but it does not automatically return people who were already deported under the policy or reopen their cases.

Civil rights groups including the ACLU and RAICES welcomed the decision. The administration said the Justice Department will seek further review.