The retired Marine Corps colonel tapped by President Donald Trump to oversee immigration courts was lambasted as a “moron” and a “dope” by his colleagues in a new report.
The Daily Beast spoke to multiple sources who’ve worked alongside Daren Margolin, director of the Executive Office of Immigration Review overseeing asylum claims and deportations across the country. Those associates trashed him as “lazy” and “extremely dysfunctional” and questioned his understanding of his duties and the law.
“Nobody ever had much confidence in him,” said one source in the Department of Justice. “I never got the impression he understood the law very well. He just wanted an easy job, where he didn’t have to learn or do anything.”
Two others agreed, putting their concerns even more succinctly.
“He’s a total moron,” a second source said. “Such a … dope,” concurred a third source.
Margolin was relieved of his chief of security duties in 2013 for firing a gun inside his office at a Marine base in Virginia, where he was in charge of enforcing a ban on carrying personal weapons on the grounds. Some who’ve worked with him for DOJ believe his sketchy background is precisely why he was chosen for his current role.
“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 source said.
“I’m so worried about the agency,” another added. “It really breaks my heart to see.”
Sources who’ve left the office told The Daily Beast they came forward because they believe Margolin was tapped to facilitate the “rubberstamping” of deportation quotas set by the White House, which critics say has undermined the independence of immigration courts by replacing experienced judges with Trump loyalists.
“We’re witnessing a complete dismantling of the immigration courts, which in substance are now dead,” said George Pappas, a former Boston immigration judge who was fired last year.
“The killing fields are coming as much from the immigration courts as gunships in the Caribbean,” Pappas added. “There’s a disdain and disrespect for the rule of law, and in its place a policy of using the legal system as a weapon of performative cruelty.”
Margolin served as an attorney for Homeland Security after leaving the Marines in 2016 and joined the Executive Office of Immigration Review in 2020, and his colleagues there say he took part in online meetings during the pandemic lounging in his back yard.
“Everybody’s messaging him, because he doesn’t even realize his camera’s on,” one person said.
Margolin fought returning to the office when lockdown ended due to a bad back, but a source said he eventually turned a conference room into a “luxurious office” with a couch so he could take breaks lying down, and he ultimately quit under acrimonious circumstances in 2024 after unsuccessfully suing for higher pay.
“That was when he went on NewsMax and trashed us,” one source said. “He became this spokesperson for Trump, and it was all about how we supposedly weren’t following the rule of law.”
Sources said his return to government work was likely facilitated by James McHenry, the former director of the review agency who briefly stood in as acting attorney general during Pam Bondi’s confirmation, and those who know Margolin don’t understand how he passed the qualifying tests.
“I cannot, for the life of me, see how he could have managed that,” one person said. “He’s not bright enough. I’m pretty sure McHenry just got him hired anyway.”
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