MIAMI, FL – In a stunning development that has left physicists baffled and immigration lawyers reaching for the nearest bottle of something strong, federal agents have apparently harnessed the principles of quantum mechanics to revolutionize deportation. Scientists at the (newly imagined) Department of Homeland Security Institute for Applied Paradoxes today announced the discovery of “Schrödinger’s Immigrant” – a state in which an individual can have their deportation case officially dismissed by the government and, in the very same instant, be arrested by a pack of plainclothes ICE agents to be deported anyway.

“It’s truly groundbreaking,” commented Dr. Phineas Contradiction, a theoretical bureaucrat who has been observing the phenomenon.

“For a nanosecond, as a Department of Homeland Security attorney successfully moves to drop a deportation case, the immigrant enters a quantum superposition. They are simultaneously ‘free to go’ according to one branch of government, and ‘imminently detainable for expedited removal’ by another, often materialized as about 10 guys in casual Friday wear suddenly appearing in a courthouse hallway.”

The Quantum Mechanics of Courthouse Stakeouts

Miami Herald reporters witnessed this astonishing legal-physics event firsthand on Wednesday, observing as unsuspecting men, fresh from courtrooms where their cases had just been dismissed, were promptly surrounded. “One moment, you’re contemplating the judge’s advice to, say, request a parole document; the next, you’re being identified in Spanish and handcuffed before you can even process the wave-particle duality of your situation,” explained one observer, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of being collapsed into a single, less desirable quantum state.

The key to this new “efficiency,” sources whisper, is the government’s desire to quickly deport people using expedited removal proceedings – an administrative process that, crucially, doesn’t require a pesky judge, especially if there’s no pending case in court. By having one set of government attorneys dismiss the case, another set of ICE agents can, with the precision of a subatomic particle collider, target the individual for this swifter process. This may even be inspired by a recent Homeland Security memo urging agents to consider such expedited removals if immigrants have been in the U.S. for less than two years.

“Collapsing the Waveform of Due Process,” Says Enthusiastic Official

“It’s genius, really. Why wait for one legal door to close before opening another, much faster, windowless van door? We’re collapsing the waveform of due process! Some might say these men have no criminal records, but the beauty of quantum immigration is that all possibilities exist until observed… or until we decide which possibility we prefer. It’s like a surprise party, but the balloons are handcuffs and the cake is a one-way trip.”-ICE liason, Chip Manifold

Legal experts are still scratching their heads. “Normally, when a case is dismissed, that’s… good news?” pondered one attorney, who has apparently not yet subscribed to the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Immigration Law. “This is like saying, ‘Congratulations, you’re acquitted! Now report to the firing squad.'” Several immigration attorneys believe these arrests are a tool for mass deportation, taking cases out of the regular docket to place them on a faster track for expedited removal.

The agents themselves, often seen staking out courthouse hallways for hours, sometimes with handcuffs visibly dangling from their waistbands, seem to handle the existential complexities with aplomb, chit-chatting and cracking jokes as they await their next opportunity to observe and influence a quantum state. They know exactly who they are going to detain and reportedly have warrants on hand.

The future applications of Quantum Deportation Theory are limitless. Will immigrants soon need to carry Geiger counters to court? Will legal briefs require citations from both Blackstone and Heisenberg? Only time, or perhaps the next DHS memo, will tell. For now, immigrants in Miami are learning that in the strange world of American immigration enforcement, you can indeed be in two states at once: free, and fundamentally not