Since 1996, immigration law has allowed the federal government to place immigrants in what’s called expedited removal proceedings — if they have lived in the U.S. for less than two years. The process speeds up what can be a lengthy one, but only for that specific group of people.
But now, as the Trump administration ramps up deportations nationwide, a Phoenix woman who has lived in the U.S. for nearly 30 years was set to be quickly deported — and probably would have been if her lawyers hadn’t stepped in.
Her name is Mirta Co Tupul and she’s from Guatemala. Her case is raising the question: Can the U.S. deport someone who’s been here that long without a hearing?
The Show talked about the case and the potential legal precedent that could be set with Los Angeles Times reporter Andrea Castillo.
Full conversation
ANDREA CASTILLO: Co Tupul, she's 38. She entered the U.S. around 1996. She's a single mother of three U.S. citizen children, the oldest of which is 18, and they live in Phoenix.
And so what happened was she was driving to work — she works at a laundromat — on July 22. An officer who was wearing a green uniform, her lawyers thought that this was a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent. That officer pulled her over and then quickly asked her about her immigration status. And when she declined to answer that, the agent called ICE and they transported her to the Eloy Detention Center.
LAUREN GILGER: Right. And she was immediately placed in something called expedited removal, which is not the normal case for somebody like her who has been living here for so long, correct?
CASTILLO: That's right. So there's a federal law that's been in effect since 1996 that essentially states that immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for fewer than two years can be placed in expedited removal proceedings. And those proceedings bypass the immigration court process. And so, you know, people are not able to appeal or anything like that.
But immigrants who've been in the U.S. for a really long time, like Co Tupul, cannot be removed until they've had a chance to plead their case before a judge.
GILGER: OK, so an expedited removal process is very different from sort of regular deportation proceedings in that way. But it sounds like expedited removal has been expanded quite a bit recently. Is that right?
CASTILLO: It has. You know, the federal government, starting around the pandemic, started expanding the numbers of immigrants who can be placed in expedited removal proceedings — not in terms of how many years they've been in the U.S. but, you know, what their sort of immigration status is and the ways in which they arrived in the country and where they are arrested within the country.
GILGER: Right. So tell us about how her case played out here. It's been dismissed at this point, but because she had literally lawyers step in and sort of say, this is not the way it's supposed to be.
CASTILLO: That's right. So, you know, this U.S. District judge dismissed the case on Wednesday, and that's because the federal government moved her to regular deportation proceedings. And according to her lawyers, agreed in writing not to attempt expedited removal again.
GILGER: Right. But they seem to think that this is a test of a new rule, that this may not be the way that every case like hers plays out.
CASTILLO: Yeah. So one of her lawyers told me that, you know, that maybe this has slowed down the government's effort to expand expedited removal again, or maybe the government is waiting for another test case where the person does not have legal representation as she did. But they feel very strongly that this was an attempt to enforce a new policy and that it was thwarted because she had legal representation and because the court in this case quickly shut it down.
GILGER: So, what would be the kind of due process implications for that, Andrea?
CASTILLO: I mean, the due process implications would be huge. I mean, it's, it's a constitutional right, and it is a right under federal law that has gone back years, decades.
And so if this were tested, if it were allowed to move forward, you know, millions of immigrants who have been in the U.S. for a really long time as she has, could be placed in these, you know, really fast-track proceedings.
And not having access to a judge means that if they have, you know, some other form, some, some way to ... regularize their, their legal status, then they couldn't pursue that in an effort to stop their deportation.
GILGER: Yeah. And factors like the fact that she has children in the country, the fact that she's worked here for a long time, probably paid taxes for a long time. Those kinds of things come into play in cases like this usually.
CASTILLO: Definitely.
GILGER: Explain for us a little bit about how it is that we've seen the immigration system shift just since the Trump administration has become this sort of mass deportation campaign. We're seeing testing of the limits on a lot of things like this.
CASTILLO: Yeah, that's true. I mean, one of the things that this case highlights is these broader concerns that this administration is sort of stretching immigration law in its effort to remove as many people as it can, so that they can speed up deportations.
And that means, you know, as we've already seen, expanding expedited removal to different types of immigration cases. You know, detaining as many people as they can. And then, you know, what I've heard from, from people who are detained now is they're also starting to hear from ICE agents while they're detained that, "Hey, if you sign for your deportation right now, if you, you know, decide to voluntarily depart, then you won't have to be stuck in here with these, you know, overcrowded facility conditions."
And so there's, you know, this pressure that's building.
GILGER: What has the response been from the federal government about not just this case, but sort of these accusations that they are planning to try this again?
CASTILLO: Yeah, they vehemently deny it. You know, the assistant Homeland Security secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, she sent me a message saying that these allegations are false. And she said that, you know, when the lawyers provided evidence that Co Tupul had been in the U.S. for longer than two years, they did follow the law and place her in normal removal proceedings.
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