phoenix — The Justice Department aims to get rid of immigration judges it feels rule too slowly or don’t follow the law, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday, as the Trump administration seeks to… Restructuring the courts It reduced the backlog of 3.7 million cases to facilitate the mass deportation campaign.
Blanche was in Phoenix to speak at the Border Security Expo, an annual gathering that attracts top immigration officials, local and international law enforcement officials and representatives of companies that do business with the federal government. Blanche’s appearance at this rally reflects the way immigration enforcement and border security have become priorities Throughout the Trump administration.
Blanche, who He led the Ministry of Justice Since Pam Bondi was ousted last month, he spoke to The Associated Press after his appearance at the convention. His comments were some of the most detailed about changes to immigration courts since he took office.
“You take an oath and are not allowed to make decisions based on what appears to be mere sympathy or a whim,” Blanche said.
“If there are judges who are not applying the law the way it should be applied, or are inappropriately delaying, or have unacceptable backlogs, those are the people we will try to find a different person to fill that position.”
The second Trump administration carried out mass deportations Central priority It launched comprehensive government efforts to achieve its noble goals. To do this, it cracked down on immigrants in American cities, expanded detention facilities and increased hiring of immigration officers.
While the Department of Homeland Security is the Cabinet agency directly responsible for implementing President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, immigration courts, a key aspect of the immigration system, fall under the Department of Justice.
Dozens of immigration judges They were removed from their jobs during Trump’s second term, and critics say they were targeted because they were approving too many asylum cases. The administration also directed masked officers to handcuff migrants in closed asylum hearings and sent memos asking judges to abide by the laws. Many immigrants and their advocates say immigration courts have increasingly become traps — they show up for routine hearings only to face arrest.
Unlike federal courts, where there are strict procedural rules and where judges hold office for life, the Department of Justice runs immigration courts and the prosecutor can remove judges with fewer restrictions.
But critics object to how the administration has reshaped the immigration courts.
“Unfortunately, the Trump administration is systematically dismantling due process protections in America’s immigration courts, prioritizing speed and enforcement over fairness, accuracy, and basic fairness.” American Immigration Lawyers Association he wrote in Policy Brief last fall.
Critics also say a board within the court system determines how immigration judges can rule cases, and it issued a number of decisions under the Trump administration that narrowed asylum’s path through the courts. Blanche ignored the criticism, saying the decisions were in accordance with the law.
Blanche said there were problems with judges repeatedly delaying cases and other cases where judges did not adhere to the law “out of sympathy for individuals.”
With an influx of money from Congress last summer that has enabled the department to hire more judges, the department is quickly appointing new judges to immigration courts, sparking criticism that the judges do not meet the standards.
“We have a very strict process of interviewing people, approving them and then training them. And then we will monitor them,” Blanche said, expressing her confidence in the new employees.
Blanche also said the Justice Department is prioritizing efforts to strip people the department says have defrauded the system, a process known as “denaturalization” that was used between 1990 and 2017 in only about a dozen cases a year.
“This is one of the tools that we use aggressively and has not been used aggressively in the past,” Blanche said, without providing specific numbers.