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The latest round of primary elections gets underway Tuesday in four states: Maryland, New York, South Carolina and Utah.

The midterm elections in November will determine control of both chambers of Congress and will also see the election of dozens of governors and other state and local offices. Before then, voters must choose nominees for each of these offices, making their picks in primary elections throughout the spring and summer in all 50 states.

Maryland: All eight of the state’s congressional districts will hold contested primaries. In a state that typically leans left (only one district is led by a Republican), the primaries often determine the general election winners. Gov. Wes Moore seeks the Democratic nomination for a second term.

New York: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is looking to shape the city’s congressional delegation through a series of endorsements, including in districts 10, 13 and 7. Meanwhile, several Democrats are seeking the party nomination in District 12, including Trump critic George Conway and Kennedy family scion Jack Schlossberg.

South Carolina: Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and state Attorney General Alan Wilson are vying for the Republican nomination for governor, and President Donald Trump said on Friday that either contender would be a good pick despite initially endorsing Evette earlier this month.

Utah: Voters will nominate congressional candidates using a new map that created a Democratic-friendly district in Salt Lake City.

Here’s the latest:

Who will replace the longest-serving Democrat in the US House?

Rep. Steny Hoyer is a congressman. But he’s also a Democratic institution.

The lawmaker has served in Maryland’s 5th District for 45 years, including two decades spent as the party’s No. 2 in the chamber.

Now that he’s retiring, voters will have a chance to reflect on his leadership — and decide what they want for the future.

The candidate field offers a wide range of options, from one of his former staffers to a progressive attorney and a former Capitol police officer. The winner could offer a clue into what the state’s Democrats want the next generation of their party to look like.

Voter picked Stumbo for South Carolina attorney general ‘because I just liked his name’

That’s what Elgin voter John Potter said about casting his ballot for 8th Circuit Solicitor David Stumbo in the GOP runoff for South Carolina’s top prosecutor job.

Voter Lynn Strickland said she picked Stumbo, too: “I don’t know much about him, but I like him.”

Pam Helton said she sided with Stumbo’s opponent, state Sen. Stephen Goldfinch, but noted, “I really don’t even know him.”

The attorney general’s race is one of three statewide GOP runoffs up for grabs Tuesday. Current Attorney General Alan Wilson is in a Republican runoff for governor.

What to know about New York’s voting-eligible population

New York is racially and ethnically diverse with higher educational attainment than the U.S. as a whole. Black, Hispanic and Asian people make up a higher percentage of the voting age population than the country overall.

The Empire State leans left, voting for Kamala Harris in 2024 by an almost 13-point margin, but U.S. House primary contests in the state often indicate the direction of each party.

In New York City, all eyes are on several Democratic congressional primaries, many of which pit incumbents and establishment candidates against the party’s progressive wing.

While there are a few contested Republican primaries in the state, the 21st Congressional District is one to watch. State Assemblyman Robert Smullen, popular among local party officials, is running against Trump-backed business owner Anthony Constantino.

Trump says his call to US Attorney in California swung primary vote for Hilton

Repeating his baseless claim that the California primary was rigged, Trump on Tuesday suggested that it was his call that got Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton a spot on the November ballot.

“Had I not made that call, Steve Hilton would right now be looking and watching the election from home,” Trump said at an event in Pennsylvania.

Trump said he made the call as California’s votes were being counted and it appeared Hilton might fall short. He said the U.S. attorney then made a call to “check” on the votes. About an hour later, Hilton was declared a winner, Trump said.

It took nearly a week to determine the general election matchup for governor due to California’s notoriously slow vote-counting process. Hilton edged out Democrat Tom Steyer.

Trump had previously suggested without evidence that his pressure helped swing the race for Hilton, but he had not mentioned the call.

A NY congressional primary pits progressives against Mamdani

When Mayor Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic nomination a year ago, New York Attorney General Letitia James was among the first to speak at his victory party.

But on Tuesday, James stood outside a poll site in Brooklyn with another candidate, Antonio Reynoso, urging voters not to cast their ballot for Mamdani’s preferred pick in New York’s 7th Congressional District, Claire Valdez.

Reynoso, a longtime city official currently serving as Brooklyn’s borough president, maintains support from a broad coalition of progressive groups, which have at times sparred with Valdez’s most vocal backers — the Democratic Socialists of America.

Rob Solano, a Reynoso supporter and self-described friend of DSA, said he was looking forward to the end of a race he called “unexpectedly tense.”

“We’re friends, and we’ll still be friends after this,” added Solano, who is the executive director of Churches United for Fair Housing Action. “But it’s like when one of your friends is hooking up with someone you don’t like. What can you do?”

Maryland voter unswayed by Hoyer’s endorsement

Michelle Green, 59, said she voted for Quincy Bareebe in the Democratic primary to replace Hoyer.

“I just love what she is doing in the community,” she said of the home healthcare professional.

A registered nurse, Green said Hoyer’s endorsement of Boafo did not hold sway.

“I just figured that they were all in the same bed together,” she said.

Green said she had only seen Boafo’s ads, while she had seen Bareebe in the community.

“I trust her,” she said.

Utah Democrat Nate Blouin hopes to rebound from social media controversy

The state senator is vying to represent a new, Democratic-leaning U.S. House district in the Salt Lake City area.

Blouin, a progressive firebrand in the GOP-controlled Legislature, faces two other progressives and former U.S. Rep. Ben McAdams, who is viewed as a moderate, in the Democratic primary for the 1st Congressional District.

He apologized in April for several posts he had made on internet forums between 2009 and 2015 that denigrated women and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Utah-based faith known widely as the Mormon church.

Before the posts surfaced, Blouin was viewed as a top contender to challenge McAdams for the seat. Some of the party’s progressive wing has since shifted its support to political newcomer Liban Mohamed, a former Meta and TikTok employee.

A fractured vote among progressives could help McAdams emerge as the winner and move on to the November general election.

Democrats are expected to pick up a US House seat in an unlikely place: Utah

A heavily Democratic-leaning district anchored by Salt Lake City emerged from a lengthy legal battle over the previous congressional boundaries. It could be crucial for Democrats, who need to gain only a few U.S. House seats in November to take control of the narrowly divided chamber.

That means Democratic voters are deciding Tuesday who they will likely end up sending to Washington.

Former U.S. Rep. Ben McAdams, who is viewed as a moderate, faces three opponents to his political left. Progressives could split the vote, clearing a path for McAdams to return to Congress, or rally behind state Sen. Nate Blouin, Liban Mohamed or Michael Farrell.

Voter turnout in New York’s Lower East Side seems sparse despite Mamdani’s appearance

Several dozen people greeted Mayor Mamdani and congressional candidate Lander, both Democrats, outside a Lower East Side voting site, but not many of them were voting or expressing an intention to do so.

The voting site seemed sparsely attended, with a voter emerging every few minutes. One man came out of the building where voting was taking place, grumbling that the election had forced the cancellation of a program that provides lunches for older adults.

Long after the mayor had left after posing for pictures with local residents, Lander recorded a promotional video in which he pleaded for people to cast their votes, “and then you gotta text your friends and ask them to get out and vote.”

“We’re going to be calling people, knocking on doors, texting people all day long,” he said.

Mamdani shows up with Lander

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani stopped Tuesday morning outside a polling site on the Lower East Side for an appearance with congressional candidate Brad Lander, a fellow Democrat, calling candidacies like his “a referendum on whether the kind of leadership we have is the one that is serving the people of this city.”

“It’s not just a question of electing more Democrats. It’s a question of electing better Democrats,” the mayor said.

He said it was important that the candidates put “working people back at the heart of our politics” and champion freedom from fear and freedom of worship.

“It’s time to bring some of those notions back so that working people can look at this party and see themselves, see their struggles, see their focuses,” Mamdani said.

Wilson has run for governor as South Carolina’s top cop

Serving as attorney general since 2011, Alan Wilson has for years developed relationships with law enforcement officials across the state as they’ve built and prosecuted cases together.

Many of them returned the favor as Wilson launched his gubernatorial campaign, endorsing his candidacy.

Since advancing to the runoff, Wilson has also been endorsed by three fellow Republicans who didn’t make the cut: state Sen. Josh Kimbrell, and U.S. Reps. Ralph Norman and Nancy Mace.

He’s also gotten backing from U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who called the prosecutor “a proven conservative fighter who has spent years defending the Constitution.” Cruz came to South Carolina on Monday for three campaign events with Wilson.

In an uphill battle to unseat Gov. Wes Moore, Maryland Republicans will choose their fighter

Maryland’s first-term Democratic governor, Wes Moore, has been a rising star in the party.

On Tuesday, Republican voters hoping to return the state to GOP leadership will pick a candidate they think can unseat him.

Their choices include a variety of party representatives, from ultra-moderate to diehard conservative.

Among the most closely-watched contenders is Dan Cox, an attorney and former state delegate who unsuccessfully ran for governor four years ago. Cox has a photo of himself with Trump on his law practice’s website, and he has pledged to slash taxes and beef up housing affordability programs if elected.

Incumbent who led Trump impeachment vs. Mamdani-backed challenger in NY Democratic primary

Rep. Dan Goldman is up against former New York City comptroller Brad Lander, who has the backing of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, in the 10th District.

Goldman is seeking his third term in the heavily Democratic district that includes parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

The primary pits Goldman, a former federal prosecutor who was lead counsel in Trump’s first impeachment, against Lander, a longtime progressive who has Mamdani’s and Sen. Bernie Sanders’ support.

Lander was acquitted this month on charges related to a protest inside a building housing an immigration court and has pledged to push back against the Trump administration, promising to “fight, not fold.”

The Republican primary pitting a Trump disciple against the establishment GOP

How far can devotion to Trump take a politician? Anthony Constantino is betting it’ll get him to Congress.

Constantino, a “Make America Great Again” disciple backed by Trump, is facing off against conservative state lawmaker Robert Smullen in a Republican primary Tuesday for a seat in New York’s northern reaches.

The head of the custom sticker business Sticker Mule, Constantino is best known for his shameless overtures to the president, including putting a giant “Vote for Trump” sign atop one of his company buildings.

Meanwhile, Smullen, a former U.S. Marine Corps colonel and current state Assembly member, has heavy support from state Republicans and casts himself as a steady hand ready for the House.

Voters in Maryland’s 5th district beat the rain to cast their ballots

Voters came in small numbers to the Bowie High School 9th Grade Center under gray skies and the threat of rain.

Rodrick Greensword, 58, and his wife Natasha Greensword, 45, both voted for incumbent Gov. Wes Moore in the gubernatorial primary and Maryland State Delegate Adrian Boafo to be the Democratic nominee to replace Rep. Steny Hoyer.

“We know the governor is governed by the pillars on which his culture is built,” and he will work for the people, making moral and humane choices, Natasha said.

She said Boafo seemed to share the same values as Moore and Hoyer. She added that she thought Hoyer’s endorsement helped as well.

Evette came out swinging against Wilson on primary night

As soon as it was clear they’d be advancing to this week’s runoff, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette called her opponent, state Attorney General Alan Wilson, a “career politician … who won’t take a stand and who does the political thing and not the right thing.”

Despite having been elected statewide multiple times by many of the same voters who have supported Evette, the mention of Wilson’s name elicited boos from her crowd.

In his remarks to supporters, Wilson didn’t name Evette, instead saying he welcomed support from voters who had backed other candidates.

Former US Rep. Ben McAdams has sought to shed his reputation as a moderate

When he first ran for Congress in 2018, McAdams faced the formidable task of convincing Utah Republicans and Democrats alike that he was a sensible moderate fit to represent a swing district. He did just that, narrowly defeating the Republican incumbent and quickly gaining a reputation as a bridge-builder in a single House term.

The political landscape has changed, and so has McAdams’ approach.

The former congressman previously described himself as anti-abortion. But this year, as he campaigned in a newly drawn district in the Salt Lake City area that leans heavily Democratic, McAdams pledged his support for abortion rights and insisted he’s only “moderate in tone.”

His progressive opponents have argued on the campaign trail that McAdams is too conservative to represent a deeply blue district. McAdams disagrees and says his record of action makes him the best fit.

Wilson says rancor with Nancy Mace mollified as the campaign went on

The South Carolina primary featured sharp attacks for months as Republicans battled for a rare open governor’s seat in the state.

However, Alan Wilson said the rivals’ rapport improved the more they saw each other in person around the state.

“It’s easy to say things about people on social media, but when you start talking to them backstage, at forums and debates and things like that, you have conversations, you start to see a human being, not an avatar on a social media app,” he said.

Wilson said he checked in on Rep. Nancy Mace regularly after her father died in April.

After finishing last in the June 9 primary, Mace swiftly endorsed Wilson, who said they had “buried the hatchet.” U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, who also ran in the primary, endorsed him, too.

A plum open Democratic seat unleashes an avalanche of candidates

What do you get when a 17-term Democratic congressman announces his retirement from one of the nation’s wealthiest House districts in the heart of Manhattan? More candidates than voters may know what to do with.

Eight people are running in the Democratic primary to replace retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler. The race has been dominated by four of them. Two are icons of a new social media age: Jack Schlossberg, a 33-year-old Kennedy family heir and prolific poster who contends he’ll be the voice of a new generation, and George Conway, the former Republican lawyer turned Trump legal nemesis.

The two more traditional candidates, also the front-runners, come with their own unusual backstories. Assemblymember Micah Lasher, a childhood magician turned political insider, is the establishment favorite and endorsed by his former boss Nadler.

But he’ll have to get through Assemblymember Alex Bores, a former computer engineer whose AI regulation bill made him a target of more than $7 million of ads from AI backers seeking to end his candidacy. In an act of political jiu-jitsu, Bores has turned the onslaught into a positive, enlisting other deep-pocketed donors to spend to blunt it while becoming a national symbol of resistance to big money in politics.

He protected the Capitol on Jan. 6. Now he’s running for Congress

A former police officer who defended the U.S. Capitol from rioters on Jan. 6, 2021, is vying for a seat in one of Maryland’s most closely-watched congressional primaries.

Harry Dunn is one of 24 candidates on the Democratic primary ballot to succeed U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer on Tuesday.

Dunn became an advocate for democratic institutions after the Jan. 6 riot. His campaign has carried forward that message. He’s running on a platform that includes protecting democracy and holding Trump and his allies accountable for misinformation and violence.

DOJ probes Brooklyn coffee shop that barred congressman for Israel views

The investigation, announced Monday by the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, comes after a Brooklyn coffee chain said it would deny service to U.S. Rep Dan Goldman over his support for Israel.

In a since-deleted Instagram post, Poetica Coffee shared an image of Goldman in their Williamsburg store this weekend, along with a message that read, in part: “We don’t serve racists, fascists, homophobes, genocide enablers or anyone in between. Too bad we didn’t recognize you right away, or we would have turned you away.”

Goldman replied to the post saying that he’d purchased coffee from a barista who allowed his daughter to use the bathroom and “could not have been nicer.”

Goldman, a Democrat, faces a primary challenge Tuesday from former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, in one of several congressional races animated by the war in Gaza.

Although Goldman has criticized the Israeli government, he has drawn anger from the left for accepting the endorsement of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and refusing to use the word “genocide” to describe Israel’s military actions against Palestinians.

In their post, Poetica said it had refunded Goldman’s money, suggesting the funds were “probably coming from AIPAC anyways.”

Harmeet K. Dhillon, the top civil rights prosecutor at the Justice Department, said on X that Poetica could face an enforcement action for discrimination.

Goldman told CNN that he was saddened by the coffee shop’s post, but said he didn’t think it warranted an investigation by the Justice Department.

Inquiries to the coffee shop were not returned.

Winning statewide in November is a tall order for South Carolina Democrats

While Republicans are still hashing out their gubernatorial nominee, Democrats may have already settled the top of their ticket — but they have lots of ground to make up to win.

In the last gubernatorial race, GOP incumbent Gov. Henry McMaster defeated Democrat Joe Cunningham by nearly 18 percentage points. And Democrats haven’t won a governor’s race in the state since 1998.

As for U.S. Senate seats, no Democrat in the state has won one of those in decades, either. When he last ran in 2020, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham defeated his Democratic opponent, Jaime Harrison, by a 10-percentage-point margin. That contest was the most expensive in state history, and among the country’s most expensive congressional races ever.

Alan Wilson says South Carolina GOP will unify after bruising governor primary

After casting his runoff ballot in Lexington on Tuesday, the state attorney general said that “it might take a couple of weeks” for candidates on opposing sides to shake off bad feelings from the grueling yearlong primary season.

But in the end, the longtime prosecutor seeking to become South Carolina’s next governor said, “I really do believe Republican party’s going to coalesce around the candidate” nominated.

Voters are choosing between Wilson and Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette in Tuesday’s runoff election for the GOP nomination.

Trump has endorsed both candidates after initially only backing Evette.

In left-leaning Maryland, primaries often determine the general election winner

Maryland is a blue state. Seven of its congressional districts are represented by Democrats, and one by a Republican. Those seats are unlikely to flip this fall, making voters’ choices on Tuesday especially consequential.

That dynamic has drawn high spending and crowded candidate fields in several of the state’s primaries. In one Democratic primary to replace U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer, 24 candidates are on the ballot.

Utah redistricting leaves Trump-backed incumbent vulnerable to primary challenge

Republican U.S. Rep. Celeste Maloy is running for reelection in a district that is dramatically different from the one that first elected her three years ago.

Maloy faces former state lawmaker Phil Lyman, who is running to her political right, in a redrawn district that spans most of southern and eastern Utah.

The congresswoman from Cedar City was first elected to Congress in a 2023 special election, and she was reelected to a full term in 2024.

Lyman embraced false claims of fraud following the 2020 presidential election. He is best known for organizing an illegal ATV ride in protest of a federal land decision. A jury later found Lyman guilty of misdemeanor illegal use of ATVs and conspiracy, but Trump pardoned him in December 2020.

Democrats’ general election slate is largely already set

While Democrats also had multiple candidates running in some primary contests earlier this month, they’re not dealing with runoffs in the top races.

State Rep. Jermaine Johnson, seen as a rising star among South Carolina Democrats, defeated two other hopefuls to win his party’s gubernatorial nomination outright.

And Charleston physician Annie Andrews also cleared the Democratic field in her challenge to Graham.

There are some Democratic runoffs Tuesday, like in the 1st Congressional District currently represented by U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is retreating from a plan to use warehouses to hold up to 10,000 people on a single site, jettisoning a key piece of former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s $38-billion plan to rapidly expand detention capacity this year.

The federal government, which was sued by Michigan and a Detroit suburb, informed a judge Monday that a warehouse purchased in Romulus will be sold. Plans also are unraveling in Social Circle, Georgia, and the El Paso suburb of Socorro, local officials said.

The three cities are among 11 where the federal government spent a combined $1.074 billion on warehouses.

The New York Times first reported last week that federal immigration officials now plan to get rid of seven of the 11 warehouses — either giving them to other federal agencies or selling them outright.

DHS didn’t confirm the reports but said in a statement that it is “moving swiftly to utilize EXISTING detention space with our state and county partners.”

Pushback to warehouse purchases was immediate

“Wildly foolhardy” is how Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former ICE official under the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations described the plans to convert the buildings into immigrant detention.

One issue was that Noem’s purchases were largely carried out of public view and angered communities that were caught by surprise. Some only learned about ICE’s ambitions after the agency bought or leased space for detainees.

After Noem was fired, her replacement, Markwayne Mullin, quickly paused the purchase of new warehouses.

Objections came from Republicans and Democrats alike

Some were opposed on moral grounds to ICE’s presence in their neighborhoods, while others questioned whether the facilities would be a drain on local resources, such as sewer and water systems.

Seven federal lawsuits were filed, and regulatory roadblocks created hassles elsewhere.

Meanwhile, questions about how much DHS paid for some warehouses triggered an internal audit. The agency shelled out double what the New Jersey warehouse was valued at in tax records and nearly five times more than the assessed value of the Social Circle warehouse.

Trickler-McNulty, the former ICE official, said ICE does have a few facilities that it owns that it inherited from its predecessor agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, but generally ICE has contracted out its detention needs.

“Facilities over 2,000 people just break down. It’s very hard to run a very big facility, to keep it staffed, to keep all of it moving,” she said.

Former head of plumbing business takes over for Noem

Mullin, who took over and expanded his family’s plumbing business before representing Oklahoma in the U.S House and Senate, acknowledged there had been issues at his confirmation hearing.

He noted that most municipalities don’t have the capacity in their infrastructure for waste and water.

Indeed the water issues were such a challenge that a federal lawsuit filed over the Salt Lake City warehouse, the costliest purchased at $145.4 million, said ICE officials told the mayor that they might need to truck water and sewage from the facility as an “interim solution.”

Plans begin to unravel

The New York Times story, which cited internal documents that the newspaper obtained, said the Salt Lake City warehouse is among those that federal immigration officials plans to hand off or sell. Also on the list is the Romulus warehouse, as well as one in New Jersey and two each in Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said it would have been an “abomination” if the 249,000-square-foot Romulus warehouse was transformed into immigrant detention, as was planned when it was purchased for $34.7 million,

“The ICE warehouse proposal was every bit as ill-conceived as it was cruel and unnecessary, and I am relieved that this chapter is coming to a close,” Nessel, a Democrat, said.

Social Circle, Georgia, announced last week in a statement that it has received notification from U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, a Republican, that the Department of Homeland Security is no longer pursuing an ICE detention facility there.

Meanwhile, acting ICE Director David Venturella told officials in the El Paso area during a visit there earlier this month that the agency has changed its plans for three warehouses it purchased in nearby Socorro for $122 million, said Rep. Veronica Escobar, who was present for the visit.

Escobar, a Democrat who represents El Paso, said during a news conference that ICE no longer plans to detain up to 8,500 immigrants in the facilities as originally envisioned, and instead will convert the property into an ICE campus, she said. The site will include an unspecified smaller number of detainees but also ICE offices and training space, she said.

Frustrations persist as communities seek details

However, many of the communities remained frustrated, as they struggled to get information about possible sales.

In Pennsylvania, state and local officials said Tuesday that they hadn’t received any new information from DHS about two warehouses bought earlier this year by the department. Both are being held up by the state’s denial of permits over concerns that drinking water and sewer service are inadequate to handle thousands of inhabitants.

U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser, whose district includes both warehouses, said he met Friday with DHS personnel, but that the agency hadn’t made a decision whether to use them as detention centers or sell them.

In Georgia, the city manager in Oakwood, said Tuesday he is talking to his state congressional delegation, trying to confirm rumors that a warehouse there will be sold. “I have not heard anything yet,” B.R. White said.

Work appears to continue on other warehouses

In Maryland, where a judge extended a stoppage on transforming a sprawling warehouse into a processing facility for immigrants, ICE is currently collecting public comments about the environmental impacts of the facility. And an announcement earlier this month disclosed more details on plans for the facility, including six secure recreation yards.

Patrick Dattilio, the founder of Hagerstown Rapid Response, which formed in opposition to housing ICE detainees in the warehouse, said there has been little communication outside of the lawsuit. But he remains committed to keeping it from opening.

“It’s a big warehouse,” Dattilio said. “It’s not meant for people.”

___

Associated Press writers Marc Levy and Ed White contributed to this report.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to resume carrying out speedy deportations of undocumented migrants throughout the United States, not just near the border.

A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out a lower court decision that temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s expanded use of expedited removal. The ruling was a big victory for the Republican administration, which views the expansion of so-called expedited removal as a key tool for carrying out its mass deportation policy.

Expedited removal — quick deportation without a chance to appear before a judge — has previously been applied to migrants arriving by sea or caught at or near the border shortly after crossing.

In January, Trump expanded its use to undocumented migrants all over the United States. Immigration agents began whisking migrants away from courthouses where they had gone for immigration proceedings and then removing them from the country within days.

“The Trump administration’s push for fast-track deportations will subject people to an unfair and error-prone system,” Anand Balakrishnan, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement.

Balakrishnan represented plaintiffs in arguments before the appellate panel and said its ruling “undermines the fundamental principle that people receive due process when the government seeks to deport them.”

DC Circuit Judge Justin R. Walker, one of the judges on the panel, said the plaintiffs had not shown the expanded use of expedited removal violated due process rights. Immigrants received notice of removal proceedings and were given a chance to respond, he wrote in his opinion.

Walker and the second judge in the majority, Neomi Rao, were appointed by Trump. The third judge on the panel was appointed by President Barack Obama, a Democrat.

Walker said there was no requirement that the administration inform immigrants that they can avoid expedited removal if they can show they have been in the United States for more than two years.

“The constitutional requirement is notice of the action the government is taking and the grounds for it, plus an opportunity to respond,” he wrote, adding that the plaintiffs’ “contrary reasoning would require immigration officers to provide what amounts to legal advice.”

Walker and Rao vacated an order by U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb that put the expanded use of expedited removal on hold. Cobb, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, a Democrat, ruled in August that the administration had not developed procedures to ensure migrants were not wrongly deported under the expedited process.

The plaintiffs had put forward “substantial evidence” that the expedited removal process, on the contrary, carried a high risk of error when applied more broadly, Cobb said. The ruling cited examples of people who had lived in the U.S. for far longer than two years but were still ordered to be removed in expedited proceedings.

In his opinion, Walker acknowledged evidence of such errors, but said they resulted from “individual officers’ failure to follow the law — not defects in the written directives under review or the procedures they incorporate.”

The Trump administration has argued that its expansion of expedited removal includes protections to prevent arbitrary removal. In a court filing in October, Justice Department attorneys said Cobb’s ruling was an “egregious error” that was depriving the administration of an “essential tool to combat the unprecedented surge of illegal immigration over the past few years” and efficiently deport potentially millions of people.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Tuesday announced criminal charges against 455 people as part of a two-week healthcare fraud crackdown that officials say involved more than $6.5 billion in false claims submitted to insurers.

Among those charged is a nurse practitioner accused in Texas of billing Medicaid for medically unnecessary wound-care procedures and using the proceeds for fancy jewelry and luxury cars; a mental health company owner who prosecutors say exploited the homeless by billing for crisis stabilization services they did not need; and a hospice owner alleged to have paid kickbacks to a funeral home employee for information about Medicare beneficiaries.

A heart doctor is charged in Florida in an $89 million healthcare fraud scheme, accused of billing insurers for medically unnecessary cardiovascular screening tests for college student-athletes and then rubber-stamping the results as normal without reviewing them.

Jason Finkelstein, 53, faces charges in Florida of healthcare fraud and conspiracy in what prosecutors describe as a yearslong scheme that preyed on the fears of athletes that they could die on playing fields or courts of sudden cardiac arrest.

Athletes with no preexisting conditions who were concerned about being cleared to compete were administered tests they did not need and, in one case, a patient whose results were falsely certified as normal later died after his significant heart problems were undetected, the indictment says.

Healthcare fraud has been a long-running Justice Department priority and news conferences announcing mass roundups and crackdowns have been common occurrences across the years. The Trump administration has sought to emphasize fraud enforcement over the last year, including through the appointment of a new assistant attorney general, Colin McDonald, to help oversee healthcare fraud prosecutions at a Justice Department that operates multiple specialized task forces.

“Today’s cases allege more than the theft of taxpayer dollars. Many allege the theft of human dignity,” McDonald said at a news conference announcing this year’s crackdown, which covers cases charged or unsealed since June 8. “Our sick, needy and elderly placing their faith in the gift of medicine were neglected, ignored and used for personal profit,”

The department says Finkelstein’s case, with allegations not only of unrendered services but also poor medical performance that put patients at risk, represents the type of sophisticated scheme prosecutors are striving to disrupt.

A lawyer for Finkelstein, a Texas-based doctor who pleaded not guilty during a court appearance in Florida on Monday, did not return messages seeking comment.

The alleged fraud ran between 2019 and the end of last year and, prosecutors say, involved Finkelstein and a pair of unidentified co-conspirators at a Florida-based cardiovascular testing and treatment practice that he owned and operated.

Officials say the scheme had multiple components, with Finkelstein and his company using what the indictment says were deceptive marketing tactics to offer free heart screens for students who did not need them and then certifying the results of the tests as normal without reviewing them — and even when they turned out to reveal potential problems.

The indictment quotes Finkelstein as telling an unnamed co-conspirator with whom he worked that “(t)hese kids could be high risk …(o)ne of them drops dead on a field, they’re coming after both of us.”

Finkelstein’s co-conspirators blasted out emails to athletic trainers at colleges and universities stating that the tests being offered could identify any life-threatening condition that could prevent the students from playing, and also offered kickbacks and other inducements to school officials to refer potential patients, according to the indictment.

Insurance companies do not cover blanket cardiovascular testing but instead require a prior finding of a medical necessity. To avert that roadblock and secure reimbursement, prosecutors say, Finkelstein submitted to insurers phony diagnoses of conditions, such as elevated blood pressure and hypertension, that the athletes did not actually have.

His company relied on sonographers who lacked the requisite credentials to travel to college campuses to perform the tests, and because Finkelstein was licensed in the 48 contiguous states, he and his company were able to submit claims for patients across the country, the indictment says.

At the same time, prosecutors say, Finkelstein would certify cardiac test results as being normal without actually reviewing them. In one instance in 2024, according to the indictment, he signed off after roughly 11 seconds on approximately 63 test result images of one patient. The test results actually revealed a significantly enlarged heart and the teenage patient later died on the basketball court, officials said.

“There is no way they could miss that, except they didn’t care,” said Mehmet Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon by training and head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. “This is not a diagnostic company. It’s a predatory scheme dressed up in medical clothing and we’re going to treat it as such.”