Pentagon agrees to lend its lawyers out as immigration judges

Nick Wadhams, Bloomberg News on Sep 2, 2025

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WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will allow Pentagon lawyers to serve as immigration judges to address a surge in cases, further deepening his department’s involvement in President Donald Trump’s deportation crackdown.

The Pentagon is identifying members of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, or JAG, who could “augment existing resources to help further combat a backlog of cases by presiding over immigration hearings,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.

He said the move was made in response to a request from the Justice Department. Parnell declined to address reporting by The Associated Press that Hegseth approved sending up to 600 military lawyers, including an initial group of 150. The Pentagon also didn’t respond to questions about which JAG or other offices the attorneys would be drawn from, the duration of the details, or the costs.

Judges play an important role determining whether those in the country should be eligible for immigration relief or whether removal should proceed, and recent migration surges have ballooned their case loads. That problem intensified after Trump fired more than a dozen judges and others stepped down voluntarily.

The move to bring in the Defense Department lawyers also binds the Pentagon even more closely to the administration’s immigration push following the deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and the use of military bases to house undocumented immigrants caught up in roundups by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

During Trump’s first term, top Pentagon officials resisted his efforts to push to deploy National Guard troops in U.S. cities or get them involved in immigration, fearing that doing so would tarnish its apolitical reputation. But Hegseth has made clear his Pentagon will work hand-in-glove with Trump’s priorities.

“The Administration is looking at a variety of options to help resolve the significant backlog of immigration cases, including hiring additional Immigration Judges,” the White House said in a statement. “This should be a priority that everyone – including those waiting for adjudication – can rally around.”

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