Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has approved sending up to 600 military lawyers to the Justice Department to serve as temporary immigration judges, according to a memo reviewed by The Associated Press.
The military will begin sending groups of 150 attorneys — both military and civilians — to the Justice Department “as soon as practicable,” and the military services should have the first round of people identified by next week, according to the Aug. 27 memo.
The effort comes as the Trump administration is cracking down on illegal immigration by ramping up arrests and deportations. And immigration courts already are dealing with a massive backlog of roughly 3.5 million cases that has ballooned in recent years.
At the same time, more than 100 immigration judges have been fired or left voluntarily after taking deferred resignations offered by the Trump administration, their union says. In the most recent round of terminations, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers said in July that at least 17 immigration judges had been fired “without cause” in courts across the country.
That has left about 600 immigration judges, union figures show, meaning the Pentagon move would double their ranks.
The Justice Department, which oversees the immigration courts, requested the assistance from the Defense Department, according to the memo sent by the Pentagon’s executive secretary to his DOJ counterpart. The military lawyers’ duties as immigration judges will initially last no more than 179 days but can be renewed, it said.
A DOJ spokesperson referred questions about the plan to the Defense Department, where officials directed questions to the White House.
A White House official said Tuesday that the administration is looking at a variety of options to help resolve the significant backlog of immigration cases, including hiring additional immigration judges. The official said the matter should be “a priority that everyone — including those waiting for adjudication — can rally around.”
The memo stressed that the additional attorneys are contingent on availability and that mobilizing reserve officers may be necessary. Plus, the document said DOJ would be responsible for ensuring that anyone sent from the Pentagon does not violate the federal prohibition on using the military as domestic law enforcement, known as the Posse Comitatus Act.
The administration faced a setback on its efforts to use the military in unique ways to combat illegal immigration and crime, with a court ruling Tuesday that it “willfully” violated federal law by sending National Guard troops to Los Angeles in early June.
Cases in immigration court can take years to weave their way to a final determination, with judges and lawyers frequently scheduling final hearings on the merits of a case over a year out.
(AP)
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This may backfire. Military lawyers tend to be non-political sticklers at “rule of law” (unlike their Israeli counterparts), and might not go along with the “presumption” (hazakah) used by the Trump administration that Hispanic asylum seekers, especially if male with tattoos, are known criminals. Also, most military lawyers are criminal lawyers who routinely do both defense and prosecution (unlike civilian criminal lawyers who tend to defense OR prosecution), and are used to the principle of “innocent until proven guilty”. Trump is counting on pliable “kangaroo” courts to deport large number of non-criminal immigrants who have already been granted some sort of legal status, and it might not work that way.