Donald Trump campaigned on a promise of mass deportations beginning on the first day of his presidency, and from every indication, he intends to make good on it. He has tapped white nationalist–friendly hard-liners for key posts in the executive branch, and he claims that the government will deport millions of migrants by the end of 2025.

If Trump’s public statements and the actions of his first administration are any guide, the new administration appears poised to expand detention facilities, attempt to reinstitute family separations, end programs like temporary protected status, deputize state and local officials and members of the military as immigration officers, and attempt to eliminate or limit the right to asylum for individuals fleeing persecution. But for those familiar with the nation’s immigration system, a key question about mass deportations is how the administration will contend with the need to hold hearings for individuals apprehended within the U.S. Generally, noncitizens who are present in the country (as opposed to arriving at the border) may be deported only following a hearing at which they can present evidence that they’re not deportable or are eligible for asylum. U.S. immigration courts have yearslong backlogs, so the need for hearings is likely to be a key choke point in Trump’s plan to rapidly deport millions.

Perhaps the administration will just ignore the hearing requirement, because it has no intention of operating a “precise, legal” deportation scheme. But as much as lawlessness is part of Trump’s modus operandi, the administration seems unlikely to disregard the law entirely. The people who will carry out mass deportations—everyone from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to sheriffs to lawyers and contractors—want to believe that they are upholding the law. Rather than direct them to defy it, Trump’s appointees will likely come up with arguments for why mass deportations are legal. When it comes to hearings, the goal will be to find a way around the need to go before an immigration judge, so that individuals can be removed from the country quickly (perhaps within hours of being apprehended) and with no real process.

The play, specifically, will be to vastly expand what’s known in immigration law as “expedited removal.” Established by Congress in the Illegal Immigration Reform and........

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