Trump Officials Hire ‘Deportation Judges’ With Less Training, Experience

A divorce lawyer who has vowed to “fight exclusively for the rights of men.” A Minnesota attorney who championed Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Trump administration’s raids in Minneapolis. And a judge who was once lambasted by an appeals court for denying humanitarian protection to a Serbian man because he didn’t look “overtly gay.”

All three are among the “deportation judges” recently hired as part of President Donald Trump’s quest to clear a massive case backlog and fulfill his goal of deporting 1 million immigrants each year.

The hiring spree follows the Justice Department’s firings of more than 100 immigration judges since Trump took office, an unprecedented purge, and a similar number have retired or resigned. More than 140 new judges have been appointed so far to replace them, many of whom have no stated experience practicing immigration law and, according to the National Association of Immigration Judges, are receiving less training than previously offered.

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The firings come as the Trump administration is simultaneously implementing policies that make it more difficult for immigrants to prevail in court. Under new orders from the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals, judges have been refusing to grant bond hearings and are dismissing cases at the government’s request so that defendants can be arrested. They are also being advised to grant asylum more sparingly. Asylum rejections doubled from 2024 to 2025.

The recruits are being offered signing bonuses, the opportunity to work from home, and even the flexibility to keep their day jobs and moonlight as judges after hours. New hires can earn up to $207,500 a year and 25 percent signing bonuses in some Democrat led-states such as California.

Two-thirds of the new judges have no immigration law experience listed in their online biographies, a break from previous years when many, if not most, candidates had experience in that area, according to a Washington Post analysis of available Justice Department announcements. Only 24 percent had worked for the Department of Homeland Security, ICE or the immigration courts. The National Association of Immigration Judges said the Justice Department has cut training from nearly five weeks to three.

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The Trump administration began firing immigration judges on the first day of the president’s second term.

The EOIR’s chief judge and three other high-ranking officials were among the first to go. Dozens of other immigration judges were later fired in Hartford, Connecticut, Chicago, San Francisco, New York and other cities.

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Asylum rejections more than doubled to 82,371 last fiscal year, which ran from Oct. 1, 2024 to Sept. 30, 2025. The percentage of asylum cases granted by judges plummeted to less than 5 percent in February, compared with 48 percent in the same month in 2024 under Biden, according to TRAC.

Trump officials have emphasized that the judges are government attorneys who serve under the supervision of the attorney general — and ultimately at the will of the president — and can be fired at any moment. The judges’ union said firings have happened sporadically in the past, such as for disciplinary issues, but the union has never seen so many firings, and for no stated reason.

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As firings continued, the Justice Department launched a recruitment drive urging people to sign up to “help write the next chapter of America” and become a “deportation judge.” Applicants are promised the chance to “define America for generations” and “restore integrity and honor” to the immigration court system.

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There are currently 700 immigration judges nationwide to handle well over 3 million cases.

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