Hundreds of US military lawyers to serve as temporary immigration judges

Head of the American Immigration Lawyers Association says program akin to having ‘a cardiologist bash a hep replacement’.

Hundreds of subject and civilian lawyers moving for the United States Department of Defense (DOD) volition service arsenic migration judges temporarily, officials person said, successful the latest determination by President Donald Trump’s medication to impact the military successful US home affairs.

“These DOD attorneys volition augment existing resources to assistance further combat a backlog of cases by presiding implicit migration hearings,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said successful a connection connected Tuesday.

Military lawyers are not trained to service arsenic migration judges, and 1 US authoritative told the Reuters quality bureau that adjacent with further training, it would beryllium hard for subject lawyers to enactment arsenic judges.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has approved sending up to 600 subject lawyers to the Justice Department arsenic portion of the plan, according to a memo reviewed by The Associated Press quality agency.

The subject volition statesman sending groups of 150 lawyers “as soon arsenic practicable”, according to the memo, with the lawyers expected to service arsenic migration judges for 179 days initially, Reuters reported.

The caput of the American Immigration Lawyers Association described the program arsenic akin to having “a cardiologist bash a hep replacement”.

“Expecting just decisions from judges unfamiliar with the instrumentality is absurd. This reckless determination guts owed process and further undermines the integrity of our migration tribunal system,” said Ben Johnson, the organisation ‘s enforcement director.

In his 2024 publication The War connected Warriors, Defense Secretary Hegseth was highly captious of subject lawyers, saying that astir “spend much clip prosecuting our troops than putting distant atrocious guys”.

The determination to deploy the subject lawyers comes arsenic the Trump medication turns to subject support for its crackdown connected undocumented immigration, including the increasing relation of troops patrolling the US-Mexico border, National Guard members being sent into US cities to enactment migration enforcement efforts, detaining radical astatine subject bases successful beforehand of deportation, and utilizing subject craft to transportation retired deportations.

On Tuesday, a tribunal ruled that the Trump medication had “wilfully” violated national instrumentality by sending National Guard troops to Los Angeles successful aboriginal June.

Source:

Al Jazeera and quality agencies