The Justice Department is drawing up plans to deploy immigration judges to 12 U.S. cities in an attempt to speed up deportations of illegal immigrants, Reuters reports. The plan, which will see an as-yet unspecified number of judges reassigned to the jurisdictions on a temporary basis, will target immigrants who have been charged with crimes in: New York; Los Angeles; Miami; New Orleans; San Francisco; Baltimore; Bloomington, Minnesota; El Paso, Texas; Harlingen, Texas; Imperial, California; Omaha, Nebraska; and Phoenix, Arizona. The Department of Homeland Security requested the change, which Reuters describes as "an unusual move given that immigration courts are administered by the Department of Justice.." DHS declined to comment to the publication.

In a January executive order, President Trump ordered immigrants merely charged with crimes to be included among those targeted for deportation. That is a departure from Obama administration practices, which directed authorities to target people convicted of "serious crimes." The change means that immigrants who might ultimately be acquitted, and thus do not pose a threat to society, could be caught up in the coming wave. More than half of the 18,000 pending immigration cases involving people that fit this profile are located in the cities mentioned, according to a Justice Department report, but only a total of over 200 are currently in jail—meaning the rest either haven't been convicted or have served their sentence. The department did not provide any further breakdown.

Reuters cites former immigration judge and chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals, Paul Schmidt, in outlining opposition to the policy shift, which he claims is an "aimless docket reshuffling." The move could further logjam a national immigration court system already bogged down with over 540,000 cases. Many of the cities mentioned are home to large migrant worker populations from Mexico and Central America. However, Bloomington, Indiana, for instance, has a large population of Somali nationals seeking asylum from that war-torn country, in which the United States military operates.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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