Justice Department targets slow immigration judges as Trump pushes faster deportations

PHOENIX (AP) — The Justice Department is aiming to weed out immigration judges that it feels are ruling too slowly or aren’t following the law, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday, as the Trump administration seeks to remake the courts and cut down on the backlog of 3.7 million cases to ease its mass deportation push.

Blanche was in Phoenix to address the Border Security Expo, a yearly gathering that draws top immigration officials, local and state law enforcement officers and representatives from companies doing business with the federal government. Blanche’s appearance at the gathering reflects the way immigration enforcement and border security has become a priority throughout the Trump administration.

Blanche, who has led the Justice Department since Pam Bondi was ousted last month, spoke to The Associated Press after his appearance at the conference. His comments were some of the most detailed on the changes to immigration courts since he took over the role.

“You take an oath and you’re not allowed to make decisions based upon what appear to be just sympathy or your whim,” Blanche said.

“If there’s judges that are just not applying the law in the way that it needs to be applied, delaying inappropriately, have backlogs that are just unacceptable, they’re the folks that we’re going to try to find somebody different to fill that spot.”

The second Trump administration has made mass deportations a central priority and has launched an all of government effort to reach its lofty goals. To do so, it has cracked down on migrants in American cities, scaled up detention facilities and increased hiring of immigration officers.

While the Department of Homeland Security is the Cabinet agency most directly responsible for carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, immigration courts, a key aspect of the immigration system, falls under the Justice Department.

Dozens of immigration judges have been removed from their jobs during Trump’s second term, with critics saying they were targeted because they were approving too many asylum cases. The administration has also directed masked officers to handcuff migrants at closed asylum hearings and sent memos instructing judges to fall into line. Many migrants and their advocates say that immigration courts have increasingly become traps: they show up for routine hearings only to face arrest.

Unlike federal courts, where there are strict rules of procedure and judges have lifetime tenure, the Justice Department runs immigration courts and the attorney general can fire the judges with fewer restraints.

But critics take issue with how the administration is remaking the immigration courts.

“Unfortunately, the Trump Administration is systematically dismantling due process protections in U.S. immigration courts, prioritizing speed and enforcement over fairness, accuracy, and fundamental justice,” the American Immigration Lawyers Association wrote in a policy brief last fall.

Critics also say that a board within the courts system that determines how immigration judges can rule on cases has issued a number of decisions under the Trump administration that have narrowed the pathway to asylum through the courts. Blanche brushed away the criticism, saying the decisions were consistent with the law.

Blanche said there were problems with judges repeatedly delaying cases and other cases where judges weren’t following the law “because of sympathy towards individuals.”

Flush with money from Congress last summer that empowered the department to hire more judges, the department is rapidly hiring new immigration court judges, sparking criticism that the judges do not meet standards.

“We have a very rigorous process to get people interviewed, approved, and then trained up. And then we’ll watch them,” Blanche said, expressing confidence in the new hires.

Blanche also said the Justice Department has been prioritizing efforts to strip citizenship from people that the administration says have defrauded the system, a process known as “denaturalization” that between 1990-2017 was used in only about a dozen cases per year.

“That’s one of the tools that we are using aggressively that hasn’t been used as aggressively in the past,” Blanche said, without providing specific numbers.