As part of the scramble by the Donald Trump administration to deport immigrants as quickly as possible after they have been swept off the street by heavily armed ICE agents, a huge recruitment campaign is reportedly underway to pack the courts with compliant judges, many of whom have zero experience in immigration law.
According to a Washington Post investigation, the Justice Department has fired more than 100 immigration judges since Trump took office, an unprecedented purge, and a similar number have retired or resigned, and more than 140 new judges have been appointed to replace them. The analysis by the Post reveals that two-thirds of the new judges have no immigration law experience listed in their online biographies, a break from previous years when many, if not most, candidates had experience in that area. Only 24 percent had worked for the Department of Homeland Security, ICE or the immigration courts. Training has been slashed from five weeks to three, raising fears about the new judges who are now handling complex life-or-death cases. Kerry Doyle, a former ICE official hired as an immigration judge under Biden and then fired before she could even begin hearing cases, explained, “They’re trying to create a malleable workforce that will do what they want without question.”
The Post is reporting that the latest recruitment campaign appears to be designed to attract loyalists rather than qualified jurists, with the Justice Department launching a drive urging applicants to become a “deportation judge” and help “define America for generations” and “restore integrity and honor” to the immigration court system. “The recruits are being offered signing bonuses, the opportunity to work from home, and even the flexibility to keep their day jobs and moonlight as judges after hours. New hires can earn up to $207,500 a year and 25 percent signing bonuses in some Democrat led-states such as California,” the Post reported on Monday. One military lawyer, Christopher Day, became a whistleblower after witnessing the dysfunction firsthand. In a letter to Congress, Day wrote that the truncated training is “completely inadequate and highly biased.” “The overall message seemed to be pushing as many cases as possible, with little regard for scheduling, due process, or procedural rights,” he wrote with the Post noting that he was fired in December after only two months of service.
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