Florida Plans To Deputize 9 National Guardsmen as Immigration Judges To Increase Deportations

Legal experts are concerned that immigration judges with only six weeks of training will not uphold constitutional protections for migrants.

After months of waiting for federal approval to deputize Florida National Guard Judge Advocate General Corps officers (JAGs) as immigration judges, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and President Donald Trump indicated during a visit to the newly opened "Alligator Alcatraz" at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport that the plan will move forward.

According to Florida's 37-page Immigration Enforcement Operations Plan submitted by state officials in May, the Florida National Guard has nine field-grade JAGs suitable for training as immigration judges, and can be trained within six weeks of Justice Department approval. "The Florida National Guard has offered JAGs to be trained as immigration judges to expedite the legal process at the request of the federal government," and speed up immigration deportations, per the document. 

After touring Florida's newest immigration detention facility in the Everglades, Trump expressed approval for the plan. "On January 20, I signed an executive order empowering governors and state police to be deputized to enforce federal immigration laws, and Ron's already taken advantage of it," Trump said. Later, while answering questions from reporters, Trump added, "Yes, he has my approval. That wasn't too hard to get, was it?…He didn't even have to ask me." 

Legal experts have expressed concerns about this plan given the intricacies of immigration law. "Immigration law is very complex," Fola Olubunmi, an immigration attorney, told WINK News. "With immigration judges, you have to have a certain amount of experience and understanding of the laws in order to be able to do that job."

Deputizing and quickly training JAGs in immigration could mean "hav[ing] people on the bench that don't understand the process, don't understand immigration law," Olubunmi said. "And so what we're going to see a lot of is just…he or she is going to sit there. They're going to listen, but then they're just going to deny."

Incorporating JAGs into Florida's immigration enforcement is the last piece of the state's immigration blueprint. Along with deputizing the National Guard to act as immigration judges, the plan outlines enhancing intelligence collection and coordination between agencies, training 47,000 law enforcement officers to act as immigration officers under the 287(g) program, and constructing more detention centers to hold up to 10,000 people.

Much of this plan has already taken shape. The sharing of surveillance data between the Florida Highway Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was confirmed in public records; more than half of 287(g) agreements are in Florida, and the newly opened Alligator Alcatraz has the potential to hold up to 5,000 migrant detainees. 

While Florida intends to seek reimbursement from the federal government, the plan acknowledges that the state may have to act independently and may not be fully repaid, making a "long-term immigration support mission…fiscally untenable," according to the plan.

DeSantis invoked the "rule of law" in a news conference on Monday for why the Sunshine State must attempt to mass deport undocumented Florida denizens—of which there are an estimated 1.2 million currently in the state—alongside the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. However, the roadmap shows little regard for due process or constitutional protections, and advocates for "an overreach of state authority and displacing federal law," which "may result in false imprisonment and exorbitant costs," as reported by the Tallahassee Democrat.

"This basically would change how immigration detention is managed, and that flies in the face of several decades of litigation that have established constitutional protections for people in detention and how you even get to be put in detention," Elizabeth Ricci, an immigration attorney in Tallahassee, Florida, told the Democrat.