The Trump administration is now calling on Army Reserve and National Guard lawyers to serve as temporary immigration judges after firing dozens of existing judges in recent months. Experts warned the move could harm both immigration courts and the military justice system.
The legal immigration system faces an enormous backlog, however, with some cases taking over ten years to process. Overall, more than 3.4 million immigration cases remain pending, more than double the amount from just four years ago. And after recent Trump administration firings, there’s only around 600 U.S. immigration judges left nationwide to process all of those cases.
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While President Trump’s budget law provided funding for 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) employees, it capped the number of judges at just 800.
The Trump administration’s new plan would bring in around 600 additional military-trained attorneys to serve as temporary judges, doubling the current number of judges nationwide for at least the short term, while the permanent cap would remain fixed at 800 total.
“They’re letting a lot of experienced judges go, terminating them with no notice, and yet they claim that there’s a shortage…” Margaret Stock, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and immigration lawyer, told AP News.
