Inside Trump's purge of U.S. immigration courts
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Illustration: Allie Carl/Axios
The next big phase of President Trump's mass deportations is set to begin as "deportation judges" turn to 3.6 million backlogged cases.
Why it matters: Speeding up immigration court rulings could allow ICE to carry out more deportations, as most cases end in final removal orders.
- Trump spent much of 2025 purging the beleaguered immigration courts. 55 immigration judges were fired, and another 80 retired.
- He then went to MAGA central casting to appoint America's new top immigration judge, retired Marine Corps Col. Daren Margolin.
Zoom in: Margolin retired from being an immigration judge in early 2024 because of his disgust with the Biden administration's handling of the surge at the southern border.
- "Personally, I felt like a co-conspirator in treason," Margolin told Axios in an exclusive interview.
- But now he's back, officially taking leadership of the Executive Office of Immigration Review, the immigration court system housed within the Justice Department, in October.
The big picture: The backlog in immigration cases fell by 341,006 between Trump's inauguration and Jan. 30, 2026, according to data shared with Axios.
- One contributor was a lack of new cases from border crossings, which have been comparatively low in Trump's first year.
- Beyond clearing the backlog, Margolin is also pushing to limit the appeals process on removal orders, increasing the number of people who are eligible for swift deportations.
State of play: About 1,700 regular applications have been received after a media campaign asking people to apply to be "deportation judges" across social media.
- Margolin declined to say how many people have been hired from the resume pool, but said the first cohort will start at the end of February.
- He has hired roughly 50 temporary military attorneys, known as JAGs, to expand the ranks — with plans to add more.
- These recruits are personally interviewed by Margolin and then go through the same training (6-8 weeks) as other hires.
Between the lines: Prior to EOIR, Margolin was a military lawyer and security officer at Marine Base Quantico, where he was dismissed for firing his M9 handgun into an office floor in 2013, according to a UPI report.
- A Marine spokesperson at the time said Margolin was removed because of he'd lost the confidence of leadership.
The bottom line: Margolin believes there are far more undocumented immigrants in the U.S. than official statistics reflect and is shaping the court to handle that potential case load.
- "The reality is, we will never have enough judges to handle currently 3.6-plus million cases, and I believe 25 to 30 million people who are here in the United States illegally," he said.
- Official estimates with Census Bureau data lag from present day, but are roughly half that figure, according to the Department of Homeland Security in 2022 and the Pew Research Center in 2023.
