The White House and congressional negotiators continue to circle around a major deal featuring military aid to Israel and Ukraine, humanitarian aid for Gaza, supplemental funding for border security, and some kind of substantive restrictionist changes to immigration policy.

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Amidst this sea of moving parts and potential deals, Reuters has reported that “another possible point of agreement could be expanding a fast-track deportation process known as ‘expedited removal.’”

It’s important to understand what this actually means: People arriving at the southern border are already eligible for expedited removal, so “expanding” it, in this context, doesn’t mean using it in a larger share of border apprehension cases. It means enlarging the geographical zone in which it can be applied legally. That has no implications for short-term border security, or the handling of new asylum cases, and will in no way alleviate the logistical burdens the administration is wrestling with. But it could put a future Trump administration closer to its goal of implementing mass deportations of millions of long-resident unauthorized immigrants who’ve been living and working in the United States for years.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20231215130504/https://www.slowboring.com/p/expedited-removal-wont-fix-asylum