Immigration courts are using a new tactic to speed up deportations

Immigration courts inside the Justice Department are drastically accelerating immigrants' hearings and bunching them together with the goal of issuing more deportation orders.

The new and unprecedented tactic was shared with NPR by immigration attorneys and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, a trade association that tracks trends in these courts.

Immigrants are now being scheduled for massive master calendar hearings — or "mega masters" — that include 100 or more people at a time. That's up from two or three dozen people at a time, which had been typical before for a first hearing. For many immigrants, this is their first appearance in court to try to make their case to be able to stay in the U.S.

Attorneys say these new hearings largely target people without lawyers representing them. Those who show up late, or not at all, are receiving removal orders, further truncating the already-limited due process available to immigrants.

"The major concern is that [since] this is going to be a group of people without attorneys, that they're not going to have gotten proper notice," said Vanessa Dojaquez-Torres, practicing policy counsel at AILA, adding that courts often lack enough seats for hearings with so many people at once. "So it's almost like they are being designed to increase" how many people get deportation orders automatically, she said.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review, the agency that runs the immigration courts at the DOJ, did not respond to a request for comment on this new strategy.

Lawyers said the practice had started in the Chicago, Boston and Chelmsford, Mass., courts and is soon to start in the Dallas Immigration Court.

The effort comes as President Donald Trump seeks to deport a million people a year — much higher than the 600,000 people the administration deported in 2025. Trump has also complained about the backlogs of millions of cases inside immigration courts, pointing to courts as an obstacle to rapid deportation.

No notice, overwhelmed courthouses

When someone does not appear for their scheduled hearing, even by mistake, the judge can issue an official removal order that allows immigration officers to detain and deport the person. That's been happening a lot more often under this Trump administration, an NPR analysis found last year, with fewer people showing up in court for fear of being detained.

Dojaquez-Torres and other immigration attorneys who spoke to NPR worry that immigrants, especially those without a lawyer, may not know that their hearing dates had been rescheduled for a sooner date, leaving them vulnerable to deportation.

She added that in some cases, little to no notice is being issued by the government by mail or electronically to immigrants or their lawyers, meaning those not regularly checking their online accounts could miss any changes.

These "mega masters" are made up of people whose original hearings were scheduled for 2027, 2028 or 2029.

"They're anticipating that the majority will not show up and they'll just be able to say that they completed X number of cases because they'll be in absentia orders of removal," said one Texas-based immigration attorney. The attorney spoke to NPR on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals for their ability to practice in Texas courts.

The attorney noted that if people do show up to the massive hearings, it could overwhelm court staff and judges and overcrowd courtrooms.

In some cases, attorneys said their clients may benefit from cases getting scheduled sooner, even if it increases pressure and creates sudden legal filing deadlines. However, most people in immigration court do not have a lawyer and are unlikely to see these benefits.

DOJ begins to staff up to take on cases

This is not the first time the agency has pushed to streamline cases under Trump's second term.

EOIR has also moved to quickly prioritize cases of people from specific nationalities, including Somalis, Syrians and Iranians. And, cases of juvenile immigrants are also being pushed up, their lawyers say.

The strategy of hosting mega masters comes as the DOJ announced its largest-ever class of new immigration judges. Last week, the agency onboarded 77 judges and five temporary military lawyers serving as judges. The agency has boasted hiring 153 immigration judges this fiscal year, the most in any year.

"The Trump administration is committed to reestablishing an immigration judge corps that is dedicated to restoring the rule to the law in our nation's immigration system," Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.

The rapid hirings come after EOIR lost about a quarter of its immigration judges last year, with more than 100 of them fired. And even as more judges were hired last week, several more were fired the same day, including in courts in New York and California.

An NPR analysis last year found that judges with backgrounds in representing immigrant clients were more likely to be fired compared to those who only had prior experience working at the Department of Homeland Security.

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