The Trump administration is filling immigration courtrooms with a bevy of extreme (and evidently extremely unprepared) ideologues, as the president attempts to accelerate his racist anti-immigrant crackdown.
That’s the crux of a new Washington Post report spotlighting the inexperience and extremist views of several immigration judges who have been brought on as part of a hiring spree after the administration fired more than 100 immigration court judges during Trump’s first year back in office.
According to the Post:
More than 140 new judges have been appointed so far to replace them, many of whom have no stated experience practicing immigration law and, according to the National Association of Immigration Judges, are receiving less training than previously offered.
One of the judges attracting attention online is Michelle Isaak, whose resume, per the Post, includes representing Roy Moore, the disgraced former Senate candidate for Alabama, against allegations of sexual misconduct, as well as providing legal representation to numerous Jan. 6 insurrectionists. Isaak led a law firm that claims to “fight exclusively for the rights of men.”
According to the Post:
Another recruit is Melissa Isaak, who alleged in a 2021 speech at an anti-feminist convention that accusations of domestic abuse by men against women and children are “one of the most abused allegations in family court.” Domestic violence can also come up in immigration court, because victims often cite their experience as grounds for seeking asylum. Isaak’s official court bio did not detail any immigration-related experience.
But wait, there’s more:
In the 2021 speech, Isaak said there were two types of women: a “real woman” who supports her husband and a promiscuous woman who is a “warm wet hole.” She also argued that statistics show more men suffer from domestic abuse than women; FBI statistics show most victims are women. Isaak has been assigned to hear cases in Atlanta immigration court as a temporary judge, who typically are contracted for six-month periods. She did not respond to requests for comment.
Atlanta has faced a human trafficking crisis in recent years. So empowering an individual known for dismissing gender-based violence and other abuse to oversee an immigration court there seems particularly ill-advised.
The Post’s report lists other far-right ideologues who have gotten immigration judge gigs of late, including a lawyer who promoted QAnon and Haitian “invasion” conspiracy theories. The report also noted that an immigration judge had been rehired after once ordering the deportation of a gay Serbian immigrant seeking asylum in the U.S. because the man supposedly had “no effeminate traits.”
To paraphrase the president, when the administration sends appointees to immigration court, they’re not sending their best. And it’s not just the judgeships: Trump seems intent on breeding bigoted extremism among the lawyers it sends to defend it in immigration court, as well.
Earlier this year, I blogged about the story of James Rodden, a man who was allowed to return to his gig as chief counsel for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement despite ties to a social media account that claimed that “America is a White nation,” that “‘Migrants’ are all criminals” and that “All blacks are foreign to my people.”
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