The Trump Administration is dramatically expanding the nation’s immigration court system as part of its push to accelerate deportations and slash years-long case backlogs that ballooned during the Biden-era border surge.
The Department of Justice announced Thursday that it has hired 82 immigration judges — the largest single-year hiring class in the agency’s history — bringing the nationwide total to nearly 700 judges.
“The Trump administration is committed to reestablishing an immigration judge corps that is dedicated to restoring the rule [of] law in our nation’s immigration system,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.
“Today, we are onboarding the largest immigration judge class in agency history,” Blanche added, crediting President Donald Trump’s “decisive leadership and commitment to securing our borders.”
The incoming class includes 77 permanent immigration judges and five temporary judges assigned through the Executive Office of Immigration Review, the Justice Department branch overseeing the courts.
The hiring blitz comes as the administration continues reshaping the immigration court system following Trump’s return to office and the launch of his mass deportation campaign.
Administration officials previously dismissed more than 100 immigration judges who had granted asylum in roughly 46% of cases, according to reporting cited from The New York Times.
At the same time, the administration has pushed judges to resolve asylum claims more quickly and aggressively.
In April 2025, then-acting EOIR Director Sirce Owen issued guidance encouraging immigration judges to dismiss certain asylum claims more rapidly and without hearings in some cases.
A separate June 2025 memo warned judges against displaying what the administration described as bias toward illegal immigrants.
“Judges who would prefer to be policy advocates favoring either aliens or DHS should consider transitioning to alternate career paths,” Owen wrote.
The Justice Department says the strategy is already producing results.
According to DOJ figures, immigration judges have completed more than one million cases since Trump’s second inauguration, cutting the pending immigration court backlog by more than 447,000 cases.
Roughly 3.53 million cases remain pending nationwide, down from approximately four million.
The administration called it the sharpest decline in immigration court backlog history.
Trump officials argue the expanded court system is essential to reversing the strain caused by the massive migrant influx during the Biden administration, when overwhelmed courts often left asylum seekers and illegal immigrants waiting years for final rulings.
White House border czar Tom Homan recently defended the administration’s deportation operation during an interview with the Washington Examiner, saying roughly 800,000 people have now been removed from the country under Trump’s renewed enforcement campaign.
“Total of 800,000 [have been removed] out of the country,” Homan said.
“If you take 60% of that, criminals, hundreds of thousands of public safety threats, have been removed from this country. Name another president who’s done that.”
Homan acknowledged deportation numbers have recently slowed but insisted the dip is temporary as the administration reorganizes resources and court capacity.
“There’s a lot of argument within the world that, ‘Are we keeping our promise?’” Homan said. “Numbers are slightly down, but there’s a plan. Get them back up and even higher.”
The administration’s message is increasingly clear: the deportation machine is not slowing down — it’s scaling up.
More over at CBS News:
EXCLUSIVE: The Trump administration this week onboarded more than 80 new federal immigration judges, in its latest push to expedite deportation cases and further its government-wide crackdown on illegal immigration, Justice Department officials said. https://t.co/OTxWwr8az6
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 21, 2026
