Trump Immigration Judges Pushed to Deny Asylum in Swift Training

Top immigration court leaders are telling new judges to refrain from granting migrants asylum in most cases, multiple people familiar with the matter said as the Trump administration carries out its detention and deportation agenda.

Justice Department Board of Immigration Appeals judges and others who assisted with training of three dozen new judges in October told the recruits asylum should be granted only in rare circumstances, according to three people familiar with the training. The new judges included military lawyers tapped to serve six-month appointments.

{snip}

The training includes roughly two weeks of classroom instruction and at least one week observing hearings at their assigned court, the people familiar said. That isn’t extensive enough for judges to achieve an adequate understanding of immigration law before they decide migrants’ fate, former immigration judges said.

{snip}

Getting what the Trump administration has dubbed “deportation” judges up to speed is a priority as it faces a backlog of approximately 3.2 million cases as of Dec. 31, according to data from Mobile Pathways, a California-based nonprofit that analyzes immigration court data.

{snip}

DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which includes the courts, maintains that new judges undergo a six-week training program, citing a 2022 document that describes a week at the judge’s assigned court, three weeks of classroom training, and an additional two weeks working with a mentor judge to develop a legal resource guide and begin to hear cases under supervision.

That process doesn’t align with the October training, according to one person familiar. The first week, the person said, consisted mostly of onboarding, followed by nine days of classroom training in Falls Church. By the fifth week, new judges were holding their own hearings with another judge present, the person said.

{snip}

The recruitment of new judges follows the Trump administration’s firing of more than 100 judges across the country, according to estimates from Justice Connection, an organization supporting former and current DOJ employees. Nearly 100 additional judges are estimated to have resigned since the start of Trump’s second term.

The budget reconciliation package signed into law last summer gave DOJ funding to have 800 immigration judges by Nov. 1, 2028, up from the roughly 600 judges currently listed on EOIR’s website.

{snip}