A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from rapidly deporting undocumented immigrants detained away from the border without a court hearing, a setback for its mass deportation agenda.

In a 48-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Jia M. Cobb of D.C. wrote that the administration's new policy in January to broadly expand a process known as "expedited removal" - which had previously been used to deport migrants detained at or near the U.S.-Mexico border - doesn't provide adequate due process rights to those detained inside the country.

Cobb, in her ruling in a case brought by civil rights groups, wrote that "in defending this skimpy process, the Government makes a truly startling argument: that those who entered the country illegally are entitled to no process under the Fifth Amendment, but instead must accept whatever grace Congress affords them. Were that right, not only noncitizens, but everyone would be at risk."

Cobb, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, said she was not questioning the constitutionality of the expedited removal statute and its "long-standing application" in border control. But she said that "in applying the statute to a huge group of people living in the interior of the country who have not previously been subject to expedited removal, the Government must afford them due process."

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Trump administration over the policy on behalf of Make the Road New York, an immigrant rights group, after the Department of Homeland Security said on Jan. 21 that it was expanding the use of expedited removal to speed up the deportation of undocumented migrants who have been in the country for two years or less.

Previously, expedited removal had only been used for migrants who were stopped within 100 miles of the border and who had been in the country for less than 14 days. Cobb said Friday that the Trump administration can continue to use the policy in those situations.

Cobb wrote that the administration's policy "creates a significant risk of erroneous removal," especially because "most noncitizens have been present for more than two years."

"In short, the expedited removal process hardly affords individuals any opportunity, let alone a 'meaningful' one, to demonstrate that they have been present in the United States for two years," she said. "And although this shortcoming might not create a huge risk of error when expedited removal is used at or near the border, it creates an intolerable risk when expedited removal is deployed throughout the United States."

Cobb's decision, if it remains in place, could significantly hamper the Trump administration's mass deportation plan. President Donald Trump has vowed to enact the largest domestic deportation operation in history, seeking to deport 1 million immigrants during his first year in office. The ability to remove migrants without a court hearing was widely considered a key tool for the administration to swiftly carry out deportations.

While the Jan. 21 policy says that the DHS secretary has sole discretion to modify the scope of expedited removals, the ACLU argued the effort violated legal due process for migrants who have no meaningful notice or ability to dispute their deportations.

Under the expedited removal process - created in a 1996 law that intended to curb illegal immigration - migrants can request political asylum from immigration officers if they fear persecution upon being returned to their home countries. But if the immigration officer denies their claim, their only recourse is a cursory review from an immigration judge.

Trump's first administration also sought to expand expedited removal but was initially blocked by a federal judge from implementing it. The policy was ultimately allowed to go into effect in October 2020. A total of 17 foreign nationals were removed between that month and Jan. 20, 2021, when Biden took office, according to a report from the Migration Policy Institute.

Biden rescinded the expanded policy.

Earlier this month, Cobb also temporarily blocked the Trump administration from rapidly deporting immigrants granted parole at a port of entry, a decision with the potential to impact hundreds of thousands of people.