Breaking: Miltiary Lawyers to Serve as Temporary IJs

AP reports that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has approved sending up to 600 military lawyers to the Justice Department to serve as temporary immigration judges. For the record, there are only around 600 full-time immigration judges. So this move by Hegseth has the potential to be pretty significant.

As I noted last week, the administration has already adjusted the required qualifications for temporary IJs — removing any obligation to know anything about immigration.

Is sending in military lawyers to remedy a case backlog that the administration strained by letting some 100 IJs go earlier this year part two of some greater plan? It’s certainly consistent with the government’s emphasis on military solutions explored by Ezra Klein this last week.

-KitJ