Twenty-one Defense Department attorneys will work for the next six months to help the Justice Department prosecute border cases in hopes of easing the growing immigration caseloads at the nation's border with Mexico.
The Defense Department reported, through a statement, that the attorneys will "work full-time, assisting in prosecuting reactive border immigration cases, with a focus on misdemeanor improper entry and felony illegal re-entry cases," according to The New York Times.
The DOJ had sought help while anticipating cases would surge after Attorney General Jeff Sessions' announcement of a federal zero tolerance policy in April for border crossing.
At that time, Sessions issued a memo to federal prosecutors at the border, informing them they should request more resources to enforce the administration's new policy.
In April, when Sessions announced the policy, criminal prosecutions for crossing the border illegally jumped to 8,298, marking a 30 percent increase from March, data from Syracuse University research institute TRAC shows.
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Wednesday night reported, in an exclusive story, about obtaining emails sent to active duty members of the Judge Advocate General's Corps to support the DOJ's request in courts in Yuma, Arizona; Los Cruces, New Mexico; El Paso, Texas; and McAllen, Texas.
"The Justice Department has apparently told the Pentagon, 'we are looking for litigators with general courtroom experience and we'll provide basic training at the U.S. Attorney's office on immigration, crime, and federal criminal procedure,'" said Maddow.
"Remember, these are military lawyers who are being asked to do this. Military lawyers don't necessarily practice in federal court at all, let alone on immigration law, but apparently don't worry, they're going to get a little bit of basic training and then they'll get right in the courtroom."
She pointed out that the focus of the work will be to prosecute violations of statutes for crossing the border illegally.
"It's the first time we've ever heard of the Pentagon directing active duty military lawyers to instead go work for the Justice Department prosecuting normal domestic immigration cases," she said.
"What this means, among other things, is that the military budget, the defense budget, which pays for bombs and guns and ammo and all that stuff, and the salaries of active duty military personnel, the military budget is, by this program, effectively being repurposed and diverted into Jeff Sessions' Department of Justice to help him handle this new huge backlog of immigration prosecutions that they've just created because of the Trump administration policy, for which they apparently made no plans in terms of how they were actually going to implement it."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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