A pair of federal court rulings could give the Trump administration greater latitude to tighten immigration enforcement, including scrutiny of lawful permanent residents returning to the United States and the expanded use of fast-track deportations.
On June 23, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that border officers do not need “clear and convincing evidence” that a lawful permanent resident committed a crime involving moral turpitude before treating that person as an applicant for admission upon returning to the United States.
Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority in Blanche v. Lau, said the Immigration and Nationality Act does not impose such a heightened evidentiary requirement on officers making admission decisions at the border. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett joined the majority. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.
The case involved Muk Choi Lau, a Chinese citizen who became a lawful permanent resident in 2007. Lau was charged in New Jersey with trademark counterfeiting in 2012 and traveled to China while the criminal case was pending. When he returned to the United States, a border officer treated him as seeking admission rather than as an already admitted permanent resident and paroled him into the country pending resolution of the criminal case. Lau later pleaded guilty, and the government initiated removal proceedings.
The Supreme Court drew a distinction between two stages of the process. At the border, the government does not have to meet the “clear and convincing evidence” standard before treating a returning permanent resident as seeking admission based on the commission of a qualifying offense. But to ultimately establish inadmissibility based on a crime involving moral turpitude, a conviction or admission of the offense is required. The court also left unresolved whether Lau’s specific offense actually qualifies as a crime involving moral turpitude.
The ruling could have significant implications for green card holders with criminal records or pending criminal matters who travel overseas. Returning permanent residents are generally treated as already admitted to the United States, but immigration law contains exceptions — including for certain criminal conduct — that can cause them to be treated as applicants for admission and subjected to inadmissibility proceedings.
The decision could therefore give border officers more flexibility when screening returning green card holders, although the precise reach of the ruling will depend on how immigration authorities apply it and how lower courts interpret subsequent cases.
Appeals court clears nationwide expansion of expedited removal
On the same day, another federal court handed the Trump administration a major victory in its broader immigration enforcement campaign.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 to overturn a lower-court stay that had blocked the Department of Homeland Security from expanding expedited removal nationwide.
Under the policy announced in January 2025, DHS may use expedited removal against certain noncitizens encountered anywhere in the United States who were not admitted or paroled, are subject to specified grounds of inadmissibility and cannot demonstrate at least two years of continuous physical presence in the country.
Expedited removal allows immigration authorities to remove qualifying individuals without the full immigration court process normally required in standard removal proceedings.
The policy substantially broadened a process that had previously been applied more narrowly. DHS said the 2025 designation exercised its expedited-removal authority “to the fullest extent authorized by statute.”
A federal district court had blocked the expansion over legal concerns, but the D.C. Circuit concluded that the government could proceed. The policy was subsequently allowed to take effect nationwide.
Courts also place limits on immigration enforcement
Not every recent court ruling, however, has favored the administration.
U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts of the Northern District of California struck down Trump administration policies authorizing immigration arrests at immigration courthouses nationwide, finding that the government had failed to adequately justify the change in policy. The ruling also vacated a policy allowing migrants to be held for longer periods in temporary detention facilities.
Pitts found the policies “arbitrary and capricious” under the Administrative Procedure Act, rejecting the administration’s justification for arrests of immigrants attending court proceedings.
In Southern California, U.S. District Judge Fernando M. Olguin also dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit seeking to invalidate Los Angeles’ sanctuary city ordinance.
The Justice Department had argued that the ordinance improperly discriminated against the federal government and violated principles of intergovernmental immunity. Olguin ruled that the government’s allegations were insufficient, noting that the ordinance regulates the conduct of Los Angeles city employees rather than directly regulating the federal government.
The judge gave the federal government until July 3 to file an amended complaint.
Deportation flights reach new high
Meanwhile, immigration enforcement on the ground has continued to accelerate.
Nearly 300 ICE deportation flights departed the United States in May, the highest monthly total since President Trump returned to office, according to the Washington Examiner, citing data from Human Rights First’s ICE Flight Monitor. That was more than double the 126 international removal flights recorded during Trump’s first full month back in office.
The rise in flights underscores the expanding scale of the administration’s deportation operation as court battles continue to determine how far federal immigration authorities can go.
Taken together, the latest rulings illustrate a rapidly shifting immigration enforcement landscape: The administration has gained greater latitude in some areas, including expedited removal and the treatment of certain returning green card holders, even as federal judges continue to impose limits on specific enforcement tactics.
