Around 1,700 people have applied to become immigration judges with the Trump administration, after a provocative social media ad campaign from the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security that called for new “deportation judges” and featured stills from the dystopian satire Judge Dredd.
The White House, as part of its deportation campaign, has pushed to speed up processing through the nation’s perennially backlogged immigration court system, which has a queue of about 3.6 million cases at present.
To do so, the administration has taken to social media to lure new hires with a recruiting campaign promising recruits six-figure paychecks, 25 percent bonuses, and a chance to “restore integrity and honor” to the U.S. court system by serving as a “deportation judge.”
The label itself marks a departure from the norm, given that immigration judges are supposed to impartially consider claims, including those such as successful asylum requests, where petitioners get to legally remain in the country rather than be deported.
Leading the effort is former Marine Corps Col. Daren Margolin, who now heads the Executive Office of Immigration Review, which runs the immigration court system overseen by the Department of Justice.
Margolin recently told Axios he previously resigned from the immigration court system because he “felt like a co-conspirator in treason” under the Biden administration.
The immigration court leader did not tell the outlet how many of the 1,700 applicants were hired, but said an initial cohort of recruits will begin service this month.
The former Marine previously made headlines in 2013 for being relieved from his position after accidentally discharging a handgun at the Quantico Marine Base while he was commanding its security battalion.
Critics of the administration argue that the Trump administration is trying to improperly weaponize the immigration court system to speed up deportations.
“To call an immigration judge a ‘deportation judge’ is to declare, at the outset, that the position requires not adjudication but preordination, and in doing so, entirely negates the term ‘judge’ as a person who attempts to address heavy case-specific questions of facts and law in the form of an authentic decision,” Syracuse University immigration analyst Austin Kocher wrote on Substack in November, as the Trump administration launched the recruitment drive. “Only a lawyer who despises the law and resents the intellectual responsibilities that the legal profession appropriately imposes on them would be moved to apply now for such a shamelessly subordinate position.”
Since Trump took office, at least 135 immigration judges have been fired or have retired, and the immigration court system has delivered unprecedented asylum denial rates.
Critics took issue with the immigration court system before Trump took office.
The system is not independent like other U.S. court systems.
Immigrants there are not guaranteed an attorney and face looser rules of evidence, while the judges overseeing their cases work for the Justice Department, the same agency employing the prosecutors.
The attorney general, a political appointee, can hire and fire immigration judges.
Under Trump, migrants using the system have been shown posters encouraging them to plead guilty and self-deport.
“Can you imagine going into a criminal court and seeing a sign that says, ‘Just plead guilty,’” Rekha Sharma-Crawford, an immigration attorney in Kansas City, told NJ Spotlight News last year.
“These posters are all across immigration courts in the country,” she added. “They put them up in the lobby of the courtroom.”
The shake-up in U.S. immigration courts comes as the Trump administration is facing scrutiny over its recruiting tactics, funneling new hires into Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
A whistleblower claims ICE has cut training time, including on issues like firearms handling and civil rights, nearly in half as it seeks to dramatically expand the agency, which the Trump administration denies.
