Military Judges in Immigration Court: Quick Facts

At the beginning of this month, The New York Times reported that the Department of Justice’s Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) decided to remove many requirements for becoming a Temporary Immigration Judge (TIJ), expanding candidacy to military lawyers (Shear, 2025; U.S. Department of the Treasury, 2025). Below, we break down the basics of this decision. 

What are the impacts of the decision?: The EOIR released this decision following reporting in late August that the Trump administration may contact an estimated 600 judges to serve for a six-month period as TIJs (Shear, 2025; U.S. Department of the Treasury, 2025). 

The previous requirements to become a TIJ were established in 2014 (U.S. Department of the Treasury, 2025). As outlined by the EOIR in the rule change statement, candidates used to be required to have immigration or administrative experience. According to the EOIR: 

“Prior to this final rule, individuals eligible to be designated as TIJs were limited to former IJs and Appellate Immigration Judges, EOIR administrative law judges (‘‘ALJs’’) 1 or ALJs retired from EOIR, ALJs from other Executive Branch agencies with the consent of their agencies, and Department attorneys with at least 10 years of legal experience in the field of immigration law” (U.S. Department of the Treasury, 2025).

Now, the TIJ position is open to any “highly qualified candidates,” with an emphasis on military lawyers (U.S. Department of the Treasury, 2025).

What is the Executive Office of Immigration Review’s (EOIR) justification?: When justifying the elimination of these requirements, the EOIR states a few reasons. One such reason is the backlog of immigration cases nationwide: as The New York Times reported in July 2025, almost 3.8 million cases are waiting to be adjudicated (Shear, 2025; U.S. Department of Justice, 2025). The EOIR goes on to express other reasons, including that the former criteria to become a TIJ was not required to become a permanent Immigration Judge (IJ), leading the EOIR to argue the criteria was blocking “stellar candidates” (U.S. Department of the Treasury, 2025). They also explain that the EOIR provides the same sufficient training to both TIJs and IJs to succeed in the role. 

Composition of IJ and TIJ Training: As the EOIR expressed, the department provides “comprehensive, continuing training and support’’ to both IJs and TIJs (U.S. Department of the Treasury, 2025). The Immigration Judge (IJ) Training Fact sheet, accessible to the public by the EOIR, explains that judges have a six-week classroom course and further courtroom training (Executive Office for Immigration Review, 2022). One outlined component of the training is “home court mentor” supervision for “minimum” one-year for IJs, which is over the six-month term of the potential TIJs coming from a military law background (Executive Office for Immigration Review, 2022).

Response to EOIR decision: Due to the sixth month time frame, there is cause for concern regarding the preparedness of these military judges as TIJs. In particular, former judge Jennifer Peyton, who has conducted the training, has expressed to the Associated Press (AP) that military judges will not have the time to do the training and work through the mass number of complex cases (Long, 2025). Additionally, the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s (AILA) Executive Director, Ben Johnson, pointed to how over 100 immigration judges have been fired to date under the Trump Administration, and reinforced that military lawyers are “unfamiliar with the law” regarding immigration (AILA, 2025). 

For further information on this topic, please reference our Works Cited.

Works Cited

American Immigration Lawyers Association. "AILA Executive Director: Trump Administration Further Erodes Immigration Courts." September 2, 2025. https://www.aila.org/aila-executive-director-trump-administration-furthers-erodes-immigration-courts. 

Long, Colleen. "Pentagon Ordered to Provide Military Lawyers as Immigration Judges under Trump, AP Sources Say." AP News, September 2, 2025. https://apnews.com/article/pentagon-immigration-judges-trump-pete-hegseth-b07950833591270b926ad86ede8b961f. 

Shear, Michael D. "Military Lawyers Are Being Pressed into Service as Immigration Judges." New York Times, September 4, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/us/politics/military-lawyers-immigration-judges.html 

U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review. "EOIR Case Data Report." Accessed [September 12, 2025]. https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1344796/dl?inline. 

U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review. "Training for New Immigration Judges." June 2022. https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1513996/dl?inline#:~:text=Training%20for%20new%20immigration%20judges%20consists%20of%20two%20main%20components,forms%20of%20relief%20and%20protection. 

U.S. Department of the Treasury. "Guidance on Federal Regulatory Procedures." Federal Register 90, no. 166 (August 28, 2025): 60000–60010. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-08-28/pdf/2025-16573.pdf.