Trump hires 140 new immigration judges with questionable experience

Donald Trump’s administration has hired 140 new immigration judges to replace the 100 he previously fired. However, many of them have “no relevant experience.”

The Justice Department sought to replace many of the judges hired under Joe Biden with a more “malleable workforce” that will “do what they want without question.”

In total, around 700 immigration judges are handling over three million cases across the US. They work for Trump’s Justice Department — not part of the judicial branch.

They are ultimately responsible for deciding whether undocumented migrants are granted asylum or face deportation.

According to Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, the Justice Department pays the recruits between USD 159,951 and USD 207,500 per year. However, two-thirds list “no relevant legal immigration experience” in their biographies.

Only 24% of them have worked for ICE, the immigration courts or for the Department of Homeland Security.

Firing high-ranking officials

It has been reported that when Trump returned to the White House for his second term, many immigration judges quit or retired. This was in addition to more than 100 that the Justice Department fired.

Some of the first to be fired were the Executive Office for Immigration Review’s (EOIR’s) chief judge and three other high-ranking officials. Then, in Hartford, Connecticut, Chicago, San Francisco, New York and other cities, dozens of other judges were fired.

According to the Washington Post, the firings by Trump emerge at a time when the administration is implementing policies making it difficult for immigrants to succeed in court.

It reported that:

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. 

In the last financial year, asylum rejections more than doubled to 82,371. In February 2025, asylum cases granted by judges plummeted to less than 5%, compared to 48% in the same month in 2024 under Biden.

Sketchy characters

The Washington Post reported that Trump’s new hires include:

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.”

To make matters worse, one of the recruits is Melissa Isaak, a devout anti-feminist.

She alleged in a 2021 speech at an anti-feminist convention that accusations of domestic abuse by men against women and children are “one of the most abused allegations in family court.”

Obviously, domestic violence can come up in immigration court as victims often cite their experience as grounds for seeking asylum.

Isaak was also a defence attorney for three of the 6 January rioters at the US Capitol after Trump lost the election. She later withdrew from two of those cases, federal court records show.

She has also:

represented Alabama Republican Roy Moore in a defamation case after he denied sexual misconduct allegations that derailed his campaign for the Senate. In 2024, Isaak’s law firm posted on Facebook that an $83.3 million jury award to a writer who alleged Trump sexually assaulted her decades earlier was a “travesty of justice.”

Another recruit, Nathan M. Hansen, a Minnesota lawyer, shared a social media post about the “Haitian invasion of Ohio” and promoted far-right conspiracy theories. After Trump’s immigration raids triggered protests in Minneapolis, Hansen asked his social media:

Is there anything we can do to help ICE if we want to?

Muzaffar A. Chishti, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, told the Washington Post:

It sends a message that: Don’t trust these courts

That is not good for the immigrants, it’s not good for the rule of law, and it’s not good for the ultimate integrity and reputation of our court system.

Feature image via 60 Minutes/YouTube