The Trump administration has unlawfully fast-tracked the deportations of Somali immigrants, a new lawsuit filed in federal court alleged.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in D.C. federal court, was brought by two Minnesota-based legal service providers against the Justice Department, Attorney General Pam Bondi, the department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review and Daren Margolin, the office’s director. The complaint alleged those officials were behind the acceleration of Somalis’ immigration proceedings on a special docket before what it called “a handpicked subset of immigration judges,” in violation of the the due process, equal protection and free speech clauses of the Constitution, as well as the Administrative Procedure Act, which prevents agencies from enacting policies deemed “arbitrary and capricious.”
If proven true, the allegations would be the latest example of the Trump administration’s targeting of Somali immigrants, whom the president has called “garbage” and said he does not want in the United States. In January, the Department of Homeland Security revoked temporary protected status from Somali migrants.
In response to a request for comment from MS NOW on the lawsuit, a DOJ spokesperson denied there has been any policy of “fast-tracking” immigration court cases and said federal law requires asylum applications to be adjudicated within 180 days.
But the plaintiffs alleged otherwise.
Beginning in January, the complaint said, the government began moving up immigration hearing dates “on a highly accelerated timeline,” sometimes with as little as one month’s notice for hearings at which asylum seekers present their cases to a judge. The complaint said those hearings were typically scheduled at least a year in advance.
Those compressed timelines gave attorneys little to no time to submit supporting evidence, which must be submitted 30 days in advance, according to the complaint. Additionally, the lawyers said the government has assigned the cases to “a small subset” of judges who, data showed, have “substantially higher removal rates and lower asylum grant rates compared to the national average.” Kelsey Hines, an attorney from one of the laws firms that filed the case, said 97% of her Somali clients’ cases “have been rapidly advanced on impossible and unprecedented timelines in this scheduling blitz over recent weeks.” “Not a single non-Somali case has received this treatment,” she said. “This is not random. This is not about efficiency or docket management. This is an undeniably targeted policy that singles out one nationality, designed to rob them of the due process they are legally guaranteed and to strip their legal teams of the ability to adequately and ethically prepare their cases for hearing.” The national legal organization Democracy Forward is representing the plaintiffs. Court records filed Thursday show that a hearing in the case is slated for April 7.
Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky. Recommended
