The Justice Department is now asking Marine Corps and other military lawyers to spend their off-duty hours prosecuting immigration cases in three of America’s biggest legal battlegrounds: New York, Los Angeles, and Sacramento.
Quick Take
- A Defense Department email asked active and reserve military lawyers to apply as temporary federal prosecutors in Manhattan, Los Angeles, and Sacramento.
- The push supports what officials call a law enforcement surge tied to immigration enforcement in those cities.
- It follows a larger plan allowing up to 600 military lawyers to serve as temporary immigration judges nationwide.
- A federal judge in Minnesota already ruled this kind of military lawyer assignment is legal under current law.
Marine Corps Email Reveals The Recruitment Push
A Marine Corps major sent the email last Thursday to military lawyers, spelling out a chance to serve as special assistant U.S. attorneys. The roles cover the Southern District of New York, the Central District of California, and the Eastern District of California, which includes Sacramento. Officers of any rank, active or reserve, can apply. Bloomberg Law first reported the email after reviewing it directly.
The timing matters. All three cities have become focal points for federal immigration enforcement this year, and prosecutors there are reportedly buried in casework. Borrowing lawyers already trained in military courtrooms gives the Justice Department a fast way to add staff without running a lengthy civilian hiring process.
Part Of A Much Bigger Military Lawyer Buildout
This recruitment effort is not an isolated move. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved sending up to 600 military lawyers to the Justice Department to serve as temporary immigration judges, according to a memo reviewed by The Associated Press. Groups of roughly 150 attorneys, both military and civilian, have been rotating into that role since last year. The administration has also placed military lawyers as federal prosecutors in Minneapolis and other cities facing staffing shortages.
In practical terms, the government has leaned on uniformed legal talent in two separate ways. One track puts military lawyers on the bench deciding deportation cases. The other puts them at the prosecution table building those cases. Both tracks rely on the same pool of Judge Advocate General officers, and both have expanded fast since last fall.
The Legal Question Behind Every Assignment
None of this happens without running into the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that bars military personnel from doing civilian law enforcement work. The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel issued guidance saying the law does not block these assignments, as long as the lawyers work full-time details under civilian Justice Department supervision. That reasoning has already been tested in court. A federal judge in Minnesota ruled in favor of the government in May, finding that Congress created exceptions allowing the attorney general to designate military lawyers as special prosecutors for civilian cases.
Former military lawyers have pushed back hard on these assignments, arguing they blur a line the country has kept firm for nearly 150 years between the armed forces and domestic law enforcement. That concern deserves a fair hearing, since the whole point of Posse Comitatus was to keep soldiers out of policing American citizens and residents. But a sitting federal judge has already weighed that exact argument and sided with the government’s reading of the exceptions Congress wrote into law.
What This Means For Immigration Courts Right Now
The stakes go beyond legal theory. In recent months the administration has removed about 140 immigration judges and replaced a portion of them with 36 military lawyers. During that stretch, immigration judges overall issued deportation orders in 63 percent of cases they heard, while the military judges ordered removal at a notably higher rate, according to reporting from El País. That gap is worth watching as more military lawyers move into both judging and prosecuting roles across the system.
Supporters of the surge see a government using every lawful tool available to clear a backlog that has frustrated Americans for years. Immigration courts have been overwhelmed for a decade under both parties, and borrowing trained military attorneys is a faster fix than waiting on Congress to fund hundreds of new civilian positions. Whether courts keep upholding these details will decide how far this staffing strategy can stretch.
Sources:
military.com, news.bloomberglaw.com, justice.gov, thebulwark.com
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