WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Department of Justice has loosened hiring qualifications and begun installing military lawyers as civil immigration judges, according to a Vera Institute press release. In the past eight months, President Trump has fired or forced the resignation of more than 100 immigration judges, the press release said.
According to the release, the Trump administration has reduced the number of immigration judges by one-sixth. These changes began taking effect at the start of Trump’s second term.
The move follows a long string of actions that make the nation’s immigration system more difficult to navigate.
“[These] efforts [have included] the expansion of expedited removals, the gutting of legal representation programs, expanding detention, denying bond, blocking detained people from their lawyers, making arrests in immigration court, deploying the National Guard across the country and more,” the release states.
Hiring judges who do not meet the typical civil immigration court judge qualifications, as outlined in the release, can lead to significant issues concerning civil rights protections and the integrity of the immigration system.
“This is a dangerous consolidation of power by the commander-in-chief, using the military to infiltrate what should be an independent and impartial judiciary, and manipulating a court system to serve an anti-immigrant political agenda,” Shayna Kessler and Nicole Melaku, co-leaders of the Fairness to Freedom campaign for universal representation, said in a statement. “Military lawyers are unqualified to oversee complex immigration cases, often with life and death consequences.”
The co-leaders went on to describe the likely effects of the administration’s actions.
“This move will inevitably increase already unprecedented detention rates and wrongful deportations and make our already unfair immigration system even more dysfunctional and unjust,” Kessler and Melaku said. “Due process in immigration court requires a trained, impartial immigration judge; a safe setting; and access to legal representation—all critical components for ensuring fairness in our immigration system and protecting families’ freedom and unity.”
The release also connects the changes in judge qualifications with the state and future of democracy as a whole.
“As a democracy, our courts should be fair, safe, and trusted places where justice is upheld and people can defend their rights and freedom,” Melaku, who is also executive director of the National Partnership for New Americans, said. “Instead, we are quickly seeing the pillars of due process being systematically dismantled by the Trump administration. This has led to family separation, prolonged detention, removals without due process, and eroded trust in our legal systems.
“After terminating judges for failing to meet their deportation quotas, the administration is taking a page from the authoritarian playbook by appointing military personnel—many without judicial experience—to the bench. Prioritizing politics over due process will result in more people being denied a fair chance to remain rooted in their communities, with their families, in this nation they call home.”
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