By Nate Raymond

May 21 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday said it had added the largest class of new immigration judges in the agency’s history this week as President Donald Trump’s administration moves to restock the immigration court system with people it calls “deportation judges.”

The Justice Department said 77 new permanent immigration judges and five new temporary ones were sworn in on Wednesday during a ceremony in Washington, D.C., bringing the current total to nearly 700 after the Trump administration fired more than 100 others.

“Today, we are onboarding the largest immigration judge class in agency history,” Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. “This could only happen thanks to President Trump’s decisive leadership and commitment to securing our borders.”

Immigration judges are not part of the federal judiciary but belong to the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, as does the Board of Immigration Appeals, which hears appeals of their decisions.

Since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025 with his hard-line immigration agenda, his administration has fired at least 115 immigration judges and a similar number have taken buyouts, resigned or retired out of a total of about 700 judges, according to the National Association of Immigration Judges.

At the same time, it has been moving to replace them, often with new hires with backgrounds in criminal prosecution or immigration enforcement. Many of the 77 new permanent judges, who will serve about half of the states, similarly have enforcement backgrounds.

The Justice Department says that overall, its immigration review office has hired 153 permanent immigration judges in the 2026 fiscal year that began October 1, the most ever in a single year.

The five new temporary judges hail from the military and can serve up to six months. The Pentagon in September said that military and civilian lawyers working for the U.S. Defense Department under the leadership of U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth would temporarily serve as immigration judges.

The Justice Department calls reducing the immigration court backlog one of its biggest priorities. It said the pending caseload in immigration courts has declined from about 4 million cases to under 3.53 million since Trump took office.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in BostonEditing by Bill Berkrot)

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