Perhaps you've heard about the Trump Administration's plan to appoint 600 Temporary Immigration Judges to help address the 3.5-million case backlog in Immigration Court. As far as we know, all the new judges will be U.S. military lawyers from the Judge Advocate General's corps.

To facilitate these appointments, EOIR--the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the office that oversees our country's Immigration Courts--has substantially relaxed the requirements to serve as an Immigration Judge (IJ), and now, IJs do not need any experience with the immigration law to become a judge. The new appointments come on the heels of mass terminations at EOIR, which saw about 120 of the nation's 700 IJs terminated or "voluntarily" retired.

What to expect from the new judges? Will they be Trump's willing executioners, denying cases as fast as they can docket them? Or will they be more fair, enforcing the law regardless of their political bosses' preference? EOIR recently announced the first class of Temporary Immigration Judges (TIJs) and here, we'll look at their backgrounds to see what this might portend for their judgeships.

Before we get to the TIJs, let's talk a bit about why the Administration is firing experienced IJs and hiring temporary judges in their place.

The firing part is easy enough to understand. Judges appointed during the Biden Administration or who have experience representing non-citizens are being fired. Presumably, EOIR leadership views these judges as insufficiently aligned with the Administration's restrictionist goals.

But why hire temps? One explanation can be found in the Big Beautiful Bill, which was passed into law last summer. That piece of legislation caps the number of IJs at 800 starting on November 1, 2028. Prior to that time, there are no restrictions on IJ numbers, and so EOIR could employ more judges to deal with the Immigration Court backlog. Once the backlog is resolved (by November 2028?), the agency will be restricted to 800 or fewer IJs. So if the plan is to hire 600 additional judges, bringing the total well over 1100, it makes sense to hire "temps," since EOIR would need to reduce the number of IJs to less than 800 by late 2028.

A more nefarious explanation might be that temporary judges are easier to control. If a TIJ fails to deny enough cases, EOIR could decline to extend that person's judgeship. Also, I can't help but wonder whether a TIJ who is "soft" on immigrants might face consequences in their military career. In short, there is a danger that the temporary nature of the appointment could create an incentive to please the boss by denying more cases.

Turning to the new TIJs, we can learn a few things from the first batch of 25 judges, who started hearing cases last month. All the TIJs are military officers and they come from different branches of the service: Air Force, Navy, Marines, and Army.

Only five of the 25 new TIJs (or 20%) are women. Compare that to the "regular" IJ corp, where women represented about 44% of all Immigration Judges (prior to the recent mass firings). Perhaps one reason for hiring more men is that male judges tend to deny more asylum cases than female judges. Data from TRAC Immigration shows that male IJs denied 63% of asylum cases, while female IJs denied 55% of asylum cases.

Eleven TIJs have experience as prosecutors, either with the military or as civilians working at the federal or state level. Eight of the new TIJs worked as defenders, representing people accused of crimes. Notably, one new TIJ was a defense counsel in the high-profile case of Bowe Bergdahl, an Army officer who was captured by terrorists in Afghanistan and held for five years. After his release, he plead guilty to "desertion and misbehavior before the enemy." Then-candidate Trump disparaged Sgt. Bergdahl as a "very bad person," and so the fact that his defense attorney received a TIJ position gives me some hope that the selection process was not overtly political. (As an aside, Sgt. Bergdahl's sentence was eventually voided due to the apparent bias of the sentencing judge who, it turned out, had a pending job application with the Trump Administration--as an immigration judge).

Only two of the 25 TIJs have any experience with the immigration law. While it seems a bit odd that people with no substantive experience in an area of law can serve as judges, that is not terribly different from what other judges do--they learn the law for the case in front of them. If the TIJs put in the effort and approach the immigration law with humility, there is no reason why they can't overcome their inexperience.

Despite the ill intention of the Trump Administration, I still have hope that the new TIJs will take their jobs seriously and apply the law objectively. If so, the Administration's scheme to fast track deportations might not work out exactly as planned.

Originally posted on the Asylumist: www.Asylumist.com