Condemning the Use of Military Lawyers as Temporary Immigration Judges

The New York City Bar Association has released a statement expressing deep concern over the Trump Administration’s reported authorization to assign up to 600 Judge Advocate General Corps attorneys to serve as temporary immigration judges with the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review.

One of the purported justifications for this is to reduce the immigration court backlog. But with the DOJ simultaneously waiving long-standing qualification requirements for temporary immigration judges, it would “predictably lead to inconsistent rulings, fundamental legal errors, and flawed decision-making, which will generate more appeals and motions to reopen, actually increasing the backlog….” Immigration law is a highly specialized body of ever-evolving administrative and statutory law, which the Supreme Court has called “complex” and a “legal specialty of its own.”

This comes on the heels of the firing of immigration judges, including eight in New York, among them the assistant chief immigration judge at 26 Federal Plaza, who supervises other judges there.

The move may also raise Fifth Amendment concerns, because a JAG attorney’s obligation to follow lawful orders could conflict with the goal of a fair hearing for immigrants, especially given the unambiguous pro-deportation agenda of the administration.

Further, this “misguided and potentially unlawful” authorization of up to 600 JAG Corps to serve as immigration judges aligns with a broader and troubling trend by the administration to deploy the military in direct support of its widespread and expedited deportation efforts. “Using such military attorneys as temporary immigration adjudicators represents an unprecedented departure from established practice, and – coupled with the inexplicable firings of career administrative immigration judges – appears as a dangerously flawed ‘solution’ to a manufactured crisis,” the City Bar states.

Read the full statement here: https://bit.ly/49ofTu5

About the Association
The mission of the New York City Bar Association, which was founded in 1870 and has over 20,000 members, is to equip and mobilize a diverse legal profession to practice with excellence, promote reform of the law, and uphold the rule of law and access to justice in support of a fair society and the public interest in our community, our nation, and throughout the world. www.nycbar.org