Trump administration is exploiting National Guard And the lawyer of the Army Reserve is a temporary immigration judge after firing dozens of existing judges, the latest steps in a comprehensive plan that experts warned that immigration could damage courts and military justice system.
Training for the first group of army lawyers starts from Monday and the training for the second group is expected to begin in the spring, several former and current military reserve lawyers said they were told. About 100 Army Reserve lawyers are expected to participate, starting an assignment of nearly six months after September 50, according to September 3, an Army Reserve was sent to the Attorney and reviewed by the Associated Press.
The administration wants to bring more than 600 military-informed lawyers to help in deciding which immigrants can remain in the country. Advocates are worried about using military lawyers to staffing in backlog immigration court as President Donald TrumpThe administration ramped the immigration arrest.
Those courts are waiting for years for hearing, and the number of pending cases in the last four years has exceeded double.
Both the Army and the National Guard said that they expect to fill the assignments with the volunteers.
“This assignment provides an opportunity to get judicial experience in a high speed, national level important settings,” said in an email sent to members of the Army Reserve Legal Command.
A notification demanding volunteers sent members of active-duty and Reserve National Guard on 6 September, “ideal candidates will experience administrative law, immigration law, in service as a military judge” or experience in the field concerned. Applicants should have sound decisions, fairness and “suitable nature for role”, it said.
The Trump administration has rapidly moved to the army to support its rift on illegal immigration. It includes troops patrolling the US-Maxico border, national guard members are being sent to American cities to support immigration enforcement efforts, housing people are waiting for exile at military bases, and to meet exile to use military aircraft.
Concern over lack of training
The immigration judges manage each hundreds or thousands of cases, decide who the shelter and green cards are found to live in the US, their rule has shaped both the life of immigrant families and the success of the rift of Trump.
Some immigration and military law experts are concerned that the reservoirs will be kept in the job without adequate training or experience after more than 100 immigration judges are fired or left.
With the remaining 600 immigration judges, with Punctic The move will double their rank. Trump’s comprehensive new tax and expenditure law provided $ 170 billion for immigration enforcement, including 10,000 recruitment Immigration and Customs Enforcement Employees, but it cap capges the number of permanent immigration judges on 800.
Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel and Immigrated Advocate Margaret Stock said, “They are letting a lot of experienced judges, terminating them without any notice, and yet they claim that there is a shortage, so they need to step and take over.”
Especially the matter of concern, the administration does not require experience as an administrative law judge or in the immigration law, he said. Stock has taught seminars on immigration law at West Point, but said that military lawyers only learn a minimum amount, which are able to help fellow service members with things like visa for spouse.
“The immigration law is super technical and complex,” he said. “This tax is worse than the law, and it is constantly changing. And it has its own vocabulary, its own rules that have no meaning.”
The immigration judges come from a series of legal backgrounds including the army, Justice DepartmentImmigration enforcement agencies and private exercises. The government first needed to have a seven -year experience before undergoing a long recruitment process, then a two -year probation period after six weeks of training.
Till now, temporary judges required a 10 -year legal experience in immigration, and often retired immigration judges, a new plan was made as per the government’s rules.
The Defense Department did not return an email demanding comments. The Executive Office for immigration review, which runs the immigration courts, refused to comment. In the rule, the agency wrote that many successful immigration judges had very little experience in the immigration law before taking jobs.
“Experience of immigration law is not always a strong prophet of success,” the rule said.
In the army, a lawyer is known as Judge Advocate General, or Jag. They study in recognized law schools and pass the exam for only two months before going to the military law program. They sometimes serve as special assistants for American lawyers and gather evidence to prosecute criminal cases, such as civil prosecutors, Mark Navit said, a former Navy in Jag and Associate Professor of Mori University School of Law.
“They are some of the greatest lawyers found in the national security world, but this will require him to gain a rapid pace on a complex body of law and then postpon cases and claims as a judge,” Navit said, “he is” a complex body of the law “. ,
Matt Bigs, president of a federal staff union, who represents the immigration judges, said that exploiting these complex, high-dot cases will cause more damage to more or more damage to exploiting lawyers with no immigration experience.
“It will appeal more for decisions. It will further increase the backlog. It is an incomplete and expensive attempt.” “It sets a dangerous example in this country when this proper process comes to safety.”
The Gregory Chen of the American Immigration Counsel Association said that the Department of Justice “is reducing the qualifications of those who will empower the decisions of life-or-death.”
He also worries that the administration will dominate a temporary fare. Permanent judges are government employees with civil service safety.
Democrats have questioned the validity of the plan
Some Democratic senators have warned the Pentagon Yojana that they may violate the Pose Committess Act, which prevents the members of the service from completing law enforcement duties, and fear from removing Jags can damage the military justice system. He sent a letter to the top military lawyers’ offices for four services, asking where about 600 lawyers are coming from and what legal analysis the army has done.
Describing the plan, the Pentagon memorandum said that the appointments should not be for more than six months. Memo also said that the Department of Justice would be responsible for ensuring that military lawyers did not violate the Pose Committees Act.
If military lawyers work perfectly under civil personnel, it could be legal, Navit said, but it is not clear.
Some immigrant advocates believe that the administration believes that military lawyers are more likely to deny cases to meet Trump’s exile goals.
But a former army lawyer Greg Rinki, now in private practice, said that perception is wrong.
“They will not stop rubber because most of us have worked as a defense lawyer,” he said. “We are not all government hacks.”
Many of his friends who are Army Reserve Jags have signed up because they are interested in the immigration law and want to serve a national requirement, he said.
“And this is also a way to put something else when you resumed – that you served as a judge.”
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Taxin reported from Santa Ana, California. Constantine Toropin also contributed to Washington.