Donald Trump’s new deportation chief has lifted the lid on his aggressive plans to race through millions of backlogged immigration cases.
Retired Marine Colonel Daren Margolin says he’s now received more than 1,700 applications from people responding to social media ads for “deportation judge” vacancies at his office. He told Axios he’d already interviewed the first cohort, who he expects to begin work before the end of the month.
Marketed online under the banner “YOU BE THE JUDGE,” listings available on the Justice Department website suggest applicants for these positions actually need only be a licensed attorney, with an undergraduate degree and some “qualifying” litigation experience.
Almost all states require prospective judges to have a minimum of five to ten years’ courtroom work already under their belt.
Rates of pay for the vacancies at Margolin’s office range between $160,000 and $210,000, marked up by a 25 percent “recruitment incentive” for first time federal employees, with “potential for remote and intermittent/full-time telework.”
“The reality is, we will never have enough judges to handle currently 3.6-plus million cases, and I believe 25 to 30 million people who are here in the United States illegally,” Margolin told Axios on Monday.
His postings on the DOJ website offer the opportunity to “DEFINE AMERICA FOR GENERATIONS.”
The retired Marine Corps colonel currently serves as Trump’s head of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, a Justice Department division in charge of overseeing asylum claims and deportation orders.
His appointment in October made headlines after it emerged he had previously, while serving at Marine Base Quantico in 2013, been relieved of command for firing a gun in his office.
As chief of security at the site, it was Margolin’s express responsibility to enforce a ban on service personnel bringing personal weapons onto the grounds.
He told Axios he had retired from the office of which he is now head in 2024 because of his “disgust” over the Joe Biden administration’s immigration policy. “Personally, I felt like a co-conspirator in treason,” he said.
That claim is only partly true, according to others who worked for the division at that time. Sources previously told the Daily Beast Margolin had in fact resigned after a long-running series of disputes over office conduct with upper management, and a failed lawsuit to secure himself a higher rate of pay.
Those with firsthand experience of working alongside Margolin further described him as “lazy” and “extremely dysfunctional,” adding that he shows a “fundamental lack of understanding” of both the law and the administrative duties of his division.
“He’s a total moron,” one person said. “Such a f—ing dope,” another added.
Former division employees came forward and spoke with the Daily Beast because they said they feared Margolin had been appointed as a MAGA “puppet” to oversee the “rubberstamping” of deportation targets set by the Trump administration.
“Margolin was chosen specifically because of his incompetence—he’s just going to be a mouthpiece, relaying orders and telling everybody else they have to follow them,” one person said.
“I’m so worried about the agency,” another added. “It really breaks my heart to see.”
The Daily Beast has contacted Margolin’s office and the Justice Department for comment on this story.
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