Trump Signs Off on Military Troops Acting as the Judge, Jury, and Deportation Squad to Eject Immigrants

Jul 01, 2025

Donald Trump sent National Guard troops into Los Angeles to suppress “riots.” If such a threat ever existed, it died down weeks ago—but the troops are still there as a permanent military occupation. Now Trump is expanding the National Guard’s role by making them into immigration judges in Florida.

The Miami Herald has the news:

For months now, Gov. Ron DeSantis has sought the approval of the federal government to deputize Florida National Guard Judge Advocate General Corps officers to act as immigration judges. On Tuesday, Trump said he is in favor of the plan. “He didn’t even have to ask me. He has my approval,” Trump said during a roundtable discussion at the immigration detention center in the Everglades.
DeSantis on Monday said having the National Guard work as immigration judges on site at the detention center could fast-track deportation. …
Unlike federal judges, who work for the judicial branch and are independent of the President, immigration judges work under the direction of the U.S. Attorney General.
Because the detention center is built on an old airstrip, DeSantis and others have also said it will speed up the deportation process by allowing the federal government to fly migrants out of the site. Attorney General James Uthmeier, who was instrumental in the detention center’s planning, said on social media Tuesday that it was a “one stop shop for immigration enforcement.” “Come in, get your ‘process,’ and fly out,” Uthmeier said.

Uthmeier himself put quotation marks around the word “process,” openly flaunting that the goal is to deprive immigrants of due process by holding rushed procedures at a remote airfield, conducted by the military. Trump is using immigration to create a preserve of martial law within the American legal system, especially since he’s also firing actual immigration judges.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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