Florida National Guard to Become Immigration Judges Under Proposal
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is seeking President Donald Trump's approval to deputize the National Guard to serve as immigration judges.
"We're ready, willing and able to take it to the next level. We have submitted plans to DHS to say if this is approved, we will go off to the races. And we will be able to do really from soup to nuts, from apprehension to detention, even putting some of our people in the National Guard in line to serve as immigration Judges to process this. We can do it," DeSantis said on Thursday.
Newsweek has contacted the office of Governor DeSantis for further comment via email outside of normal office hours.
Why It Matters
At a Thursday press conference, DeSantis appeared alongside Department of Homeland Security officials to promote Operation Tidal Wave. The Florida-led initiative partnered with federal, state, and local law enforcement to apprehend immigrants without legal status in the state.
Florida has experienced broad collaboration between federal immigration authorities and local state agencies, as the administration mobilizes all available resources to carry out mass deportations—a key pledge of President Trump's return to the White House.
Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a press conference about a recent immigration enforcement operation, at the South Florida office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Enforcement and Removal Operations, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in...
Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a press conference about a recent immigration enforcement operation, at the South Florida office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Enforcement and Removal Operations, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Miramar, Florida. More
Rebecca Blackwell/AP
What To Know
DeSantis is seeking to expand the state's role beyond making arrests to include adjudication, proposing the use of National Guard members as immigration judges—pending approval from the Trump administration.
"These are not Article 3 judges. They are executive branch employees, basically. We can absolutely deputize judge advocates from our National Guard units to serve as immigration judges," he added.
The Governor brushed aside concerns about due process, claiming there are "tens of thousands of illegal aliens in Florida at a minimum that have already been issued final orders of removal, and there's hundreds of thousands of them throughout the United States of America."
"So they've had a lot of process. They've been ordered to be removed," DeSantis said. "They have not complied with those removal orders, and that's a very, very high priority for our state efforts to continue to identify those individuals and make sure that they return to their country of origin."
Immigration courts are facing significant strain, with a backlog surpassing 3.7 million cases, according to Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Asylum-seekers frequently endure years of waiting for a decision. There is widespread political backing for increasing the number of judges and staff to help alleviate the workload.
DeSantis explained that the appointees would not be federal judges, who are appointed by the president under Article III of the Constitution. Instead, he plans to designate Judge Advocate Generals from the Florida National Guard, who already hold their positions, to serve as immigration judges.
Immigrant rights advocates hit back at DeSantis over the plans, saying his proposals would violate constitutional rights and due process protections.
"To Governor DeSantis, we would remind that, yes, the U.S. Constitution guarantees due process rights to all individuals, regardless of immigration legal status. And no, immigration hearings are not 'O.J. Simpson trials' as he hyperbolically but very seriously claimed during today's pantomime," Adriana Rivera, of the Florida Immigrant Coalition said in a statement shared with Newsweek.
It comes after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced Thursday that 1,120 individuals were arrested during a weeklong enforcement operation carried out with the help of the state of Florida, 13 local sheriff's departments, and other federal agencies, including the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Among those taken into custody were 378 immigrants with final orders of removal. The operation also targeted known suspected gang members, including members of notorious crime syndicates such as MS-13, Tren de Aragua (TDA), Barrio Azteca, and the 18th Street Gang.
What People Are Saying
DeSantis said at a press conference on Thursday: "If we get the sign-off from DHS, we can expand detention space very quickly in Florida. I mean, just think about it. I mean, you guys who are Florida based, you know when we have hurricanes, we end up setting up locations for tens of thousands of linemen, right? Do that very, very quickly. So we have the capacity to set it up quickly, but we're not going to do that without the approval of the Department of Homeland Security."
Rivera said in a statement: "Notable moments of today's theater included the judicial branch being blamed for upholding the U.S. Constitution. This is par for the course and taken out of the same autocratic handbook that Trump is reading from when their plans run into the obvious constitutional checks and balances masterfully crafted by our founders.
"As anyone who ever studied civics knows, due process is a fundamental right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. It protects people against arbitrary government decisions and ensures fairness in legal matters. Both citizens and noncitizens in the U.S. have the right to due process, a chance to defend their rights and to have a fair hearing.
Eric Daugherty, Assistant News Director at Florida's Voice said in a post on X: "This would help swiften the process of deportations."
What Happens Next
Governor DeSantis's proposal to have National Guard members serve as immigration judges is unprecedented and would likely face legal challenges.
However, the move aligns with President Trump's hard-line agenda and it could help expedite the Republican's plot to carry out mass deportations.
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