The Trump administration has appointed almost 200 new immigration judges, which means that almost half of all the immigration judges who are in courts currently have been appointed by this administration. And to give a sense of the kind of people being brought in to be judges - about half of those people previously worked for ICE.

Journalist Madeleine Schwartz examines the Executive branch's deep influence over US immigration courts - as President Trump reshapes national immigration law, his control over immigration judges bends an entire legal system to the will of a growing, nativist right wing deportation apparatus.

Madeleine wrote the artice Inside the Deportation Courts for New York Review of Books.