DOJ has employed a new tactic, and it’s got Immigration Courts rapidly speeding up hearings to issue more deportation orders

The Justice Department’s immigration courts are really shaking things up, drastically accelerating immigrants’ hearings and bunching them together with the goal of issuing more deportation orders, NPR reported. This is an unprecedented tactic, and it’s definitely got immigration attorneys and organizations like the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) tracking the trends.

We’re now seeing what are being called “mega masters,” which are massive master calendar hearings that include 100 or more people at a time. That’s a huge jump from the typical two or three dozen people that used to be in a first hearing. For many immigrants, this is their very first court appearance to try and make their case to stay in the U.S., so this change is a big deal.

Attorneys are pretty concerned because these new hearings largely target people who don’t have lawyers representing them. If someone shows up late, or doesn’t show up at all, they’re automatically receiving removal orders.

This really truncates the already limited due process available to immigrants, which is just awful for those trying to navigate a complex system

Vanessa Dojaquez-Torres, a practicing policy counsel at AILA, pointed out a major concern: “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.” She also mentioned that courts often don’t even have enough seats for hearings with so many people at once. It really makes it seem like “they are being designed to increase” how many people get automatic deportation orders, she added.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which is the agency that runs these immigration courts at the DOJ, didn’t respond to a request for comment on this new strategy. We’re hearing that this practice has already started in courts in Chicago, Boston, and Chelmsford, Massachusetts, and it’s expected to kick off soon in the Dallas Immigration Court as well.

This push for faster processing comes as President Trump has been vocal about his goal to deport a million people a year, which is a lot higher than the 600,000 people the administration deported in 2025. President Trump has also complained quite a bit about the backlogs of millions of cases inside immigration courts, seeing them as an obstacle to rapid deportation.

One of the biggest worries for attorneys is the lack of proper notice. If someone misses their scheduled hearing, even by mistake, the judge can issue an official removal order allowing immigration officers to detain and deport them. An NPR analysis last year found that this has been happening a lot more often under this administration, partly because fewer people are showing up to court out of fear of being detained.

Dojaquez-Torres and other immigration attorneys who spoke to NPR are concerned that immigrants, especially those without a lawyer, might not even know their hearing dates have been rescheduled for a much sooner date. This leaves them super vulnerable to deportation. She also mentioned that in some cases, the government is issuing little to no notice by mail or electronically to immigrants or their lawyers. That means if you’re not regularly checking your online accounts, you could easily miss these critical changes.

These “mega masters” are actually made up of people whose original hearings were scheduled for years like 2027, 2028, or 2029. It’s a drastic acceleration of the timeline. One Texas-based immigration attorney, who spoke to NPR anonymously due to fear of reprisals, put it pretty bluntly: “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.” The attorney also noted that if a lot of people actually do show up to these massive hearings, it could seriously overwhelm court staff, judges, and overcrowd the courtrooms.

While some attorneys admit that their clients might benefit from cases getting scheduled sooner, even if it adds pressure and creates sudden legal filing deadlines, this is likely an advantage for a very small group. Most people in immigration court don’t have a lawyer, so they’re unlikely to see these benefits.

This isn’t the first time the agency has pushed to streamline cases under President Trump’s second term. The EOIR has also moved to quickly prioritize cases for people from specific nationalities, including Somalis, Syrians, and Iranians. Lawyers are also reporting that cases involving juvenile immigrants are being pushed up the queue.

This strategy of hosting “mega masters” coincides with the DOJ’s announcement of its largest-ever class of new immigration judges. Just last week, the agency onboarded 77 new judges and five temporary military lawyers who will serve as judges. The agency has proudly stated it’s hired 153 immigration judges this fiscal year, which is the most in any single year.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a statement saying, “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.”

These rapid hirings at the DOJ come after the EOIR lost about a quarter of its immigration judges last year, with more than 100 of them fired. Even as more judges were hired last week, several more were fired on the same day, including in courts in New York and California. An NPR analysis last year found that judges with backgrounds representing immigrant clients were more likely to be fired compared to those who only had prior experience working at the Department of Homeland Security.