It’s not just DC or the border — the military is also invading our immigration courts

The Pentagon is sending up to 600 military lawyers into immigration courts — a step Washington explains as necessary to ease the record backlog of more than 3.5 million cases.

For comparison, the Executive Office for Immigration Review currently employs about 700 immigration judges. Even after record hiring of judges in 2024, the number did not exceed 800. In practice, this decision doubles the workforce, but it does so by relying on people without real experience in immigration law.

The Justice Department has already lowered qualification requirements, allowing lawyers with backgrounds in disciplinary tribunals to take part. A formal “temporary measure” changes the architecture of the system, placing the military inside civilian justice in cases that require detailed legal analysis, not the logic of military disciplinary procedures.

This shift once again points to the militarization of the system and creates a dangerous precedent for immigration policy as a whole.

The official reason is the sheer volume of cases and the average time of review. But the decision to bring in military lawyers also matches the political demand for “strength and speed” ahead of the 2026 elections.

In June, TRAC reported that the number of new immigration cases had actually fallen by 18 percent compared to 2024. Yet the growth of agencies continues, confirming the paradox — there is no real basis for emergency expansion of the courts now if there wasn’t one before. What the public sees is the message that “justice is speeding up” — that order can be restored. This narrative is aimed first of all at the southern states.

Even today, the immigration court system is not a fully independent branch of the judiciary — it operates under the Department of Justice. To add the military is to blur the boundaries even further. In 2024, about 42 percent of asylum claims were approved in civilian courts, whereas in special military jurisdictions (such as cases of detainees abroad) the approval rate was no more than 10 to 15 percent. This shift turns immigration proceedings from a quasi-judicial process into a disciplinary one, where law gives way to command-logic.

Southern states, especially Texas, will become the main testing ground, as they already handle the largest number of hearings. For Republican governors, this is a convenient tool. Showing toughness at the border translates to a stronger electoral image. But for local communities, it works the opposite way, deepening mistrust toward the court system.

Since Texas and Florida are key arenas for 2026, turning immigration courts into tribunals undermines the very idea of fair process.

Bringing military lawyers into immigration courts looks like a temporary solution to the backlog. But in fact, it is a step toward militarizing justice, undermining the idea of judicial independence and sending life-changing decisions in the wrong direction. And today’s technical reduction of the backlog can easily become the new norm, cutting out the civilian system.

An immigration field that clearly needs reform instead requires real solutions based on transparency. Militarization only continues the existing model — an extension of border politics, where speed and force are placed above fairness and due process.

Artem Kolisnichenko writes on crime, immigration, and border policy across the American South and Southwest.