A federal judge dealt a significant setback to President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts on Friday, halting actions aimed at expediting deportations without due process. The judge highlighted that if the government’s approach were accepted, “everyone would be at risk” of losing their rights, and not just noncitizens.

“The government could accuse you of entering unlawfully and subject you to a minimal proceeding where it would ‘prove’ your unlawful entry before promptly deporting you,” wrote U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, appointed by Joe Biden, in a 48-page opinion issued in the District Court for the District of Columbia.

“By simply accusing you of illegal entry, the government would strip you of any meaningful chance to refute its claims,” Cobb stated. “Fortunately, that is not the law. The Constitution ensures that ‘no person shall be removed from the United States without the chance to be heard.’ This applies equally to those who are here unlawfully.”

Throughout her ruling, Cobb was direct, criticizing the Trump administration for undermining due process in its haste to deport individuals without affording them “the right to legal representation, the ability to examine and present evidence, and to cross-examine witnesses,” as described by the Washington judge.

“In defending this minimal process, the government presents a surprisingly bold assertion: that those who enter the country illegally have no rights under the Fifth Amendment and must accept whatever leniency Congress provides,” Cobb wrote. “If this were accurate, not only noncitizens but everyone would be endangered.”

In another case, earlier this month, Cobb barred the Trump administration from swiftly deporting immigrants who had previously been allowed entry, sharply criticizing the federal government over its various removal strategies. While the plaintiffs did not argue a constitutional due process breach, Cobb highlighted that immigrants involved in the case—and Trump’s broader deportation efforts—had “escaped oppressive regimes and dangerous situations in their home countries” and followed “the rules” to reach the United States, only to face punishment now, according to Cobb.

On Friday, Cobb described how the Make the Road immigrant advocacy group is suing the Trump administration after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) expanded its use of the expedited removal process. She said that the group has put forward evidence, which the government has not disputed, accusing it of setting a goal in May of making 3,000 immigration arrests each day.

“Apparently in an effort to meet that goal, the government began targeting for expedited removal people already in section 240 removal proceedings, many of whom are pursuing asylum and other collateral relief,” Cobb explained.

“In its declarations, Make the Road details numerous arrests of individuals at their immigration court hearings,” the judge said. “These arrests follow a common pattern, with DHS first moving orally (without any advance notice) to dismiss the individual’s pending section 240 proceedings, then arresting the individual at the courthouse immediately upon the dismissal of their section 240 proceedings, and then, finally, placing the individual in expedited removal proceedings through which they can be deported far more quickly, and with far less process, than they would have been in the section 240 proceedings.”

According to Cobb, “the record” reveals that the government’s “expanded expedited removal efforts have not been limited to courthouses” and immigrants are now being snatched off the streets in “workplace raids” that are touted as being a “new phase of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown,” per the Friday ruling.

“A DHS spokesperson stated that ‘2,000 immigrants per day were arrested’ during the first week in June,” Cobb recounted. “Given these enforcement efforts, Make the Road calls it a ‘near-certainty that even more people’ — including its members — ‘will be placed in expedited removal.'”

While Cobb called out the Trump administration for ignoring due process laws, she did not question the constitutionality or government’s application of the expedited removal process.

“It merely holds 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,” Cobb said. “The procedures currently in place fall short.”

In her ruling earlier this month, Cobb rejected claims from the government that the plaintiffs in that case had improperly challenged the Trump administration’s policy directives by using the wrong statute to push for an effective injunction and because the actions had already gone into effect. Cobb explained that the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the federal statute governing the behavior of departments and agencies, expressly authorizes courts to issue such stays against unlawful agency actions.

DHS blasted Cobb’s most recent ruling in a statement over the weekend, saying: “This activist judge’s ruling ignores the President’s clear authorities under both Article II of the Constitution and the plain language of federal law. … President Trump has a mandate to arrest and deport the worst of the worst. We have the law, facts, and common sense on our side.”