DOJ's New Mass Deportation Tactic: Speed Over Process

The Justice Department is using a new approach to clear immigration court backlogs: cramming more than 100 immigrants into a single hearing, issuing removal orders for anyone who doesn't show up.

According to NPR reporter Ximena Bustillo, immigration courts are scheduling what lawyers call "mega masters" — mass hearings with 100 or more immigrants at a time. The previous standard was two to three dozen per hearing. These are often the first time an immigrant appears in court to argue their case to stay in the country.

Who Gets Targeted

This isn't random. According to the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), these hearings largely target people who don't have lawyers.

An unrepresented immigrant who doesn't understand the U.S. court system, may not speak English, and may not have reliable access to mail or legal notices is now being scheduled into a room that may not even have enough seats for everyone.

Vanessa Dojaquez-Torres, practicing policy counsel at AILA, told NPR: "So it's almost like they are being designed to increase" the number of people who receive automatic deportation orders.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review — the DOJ agency that runs immigration courts — refused to comment on the allegations.

The Mechanics of How This Works

Under immigration law, if someone misses their court date — even by mistake — a judge can issue an official removal order that authorizes immigration officers to detain and deport the person.

Normal hearings had 20-30 people, with notification systems already imperfect then.

With 100+ people in one room, courts often don't have enough seats for everyone. If someone is late because they couldn't find parking, couldn't find the right courtroom, or simply wasn't properly notified, they receive a deportation order.

The tactic started in Chicago, Boston, and Chelmsford, Massachusetts, according to immigration attorneys cited by NPR. It is now expanding to Dallas.

The Actual Goal: A Million Deportations a Year

President Trump has set a target of one million deportations per year. The administration deported approximately 600,000 people in 2025, according to NPR. Trump wants to nearly double that figure.

The immigration court backlog — running into the millions of cases — has been a genuine obstacle to that goal. Trump has publicly complained about it.

Instead of hiring more judges, building more courts, or fixing the notification system, the administration is compressing individual hearings into mass events where the odds of a no-show — and therefore an automatic removal order — increase dramatically.

The approach is efficient in processing cases. But whether it constitutes actual judicial review is a question the administration has not addressed in mainstream coverage.

What the Coverage Is Getting Wrong

NPR and its affiliate stations running this story are not acknowledging a baseline fact: the backlog is real and it was broken long before Trump.

Millions of pending immigration cases didn't accumulate overnight. Years of inadequate enforcement, catch-and-release policies, and deliberately slow adjudication under previous administrations created the pile. Trump didn't invent a broken system — he inherited one and is now moving through it in ways that raise legitimate legal questions.

But NPR's framing relies entirely on AILA — a lawyers' trade association with a financial and ideological interest in slower, more attorney-intensive proceedings. That conflict of interest goes unacknowledged in the reporting.

The administration's position — that a backlocked court system with millions of pending cases is itself a due process problem — receives no airtime.

The Legitimate Concern That Cuts Both Ways

Due process isn't a partisan issue. It's the Fifth Amendment, applying to everyone on U.S. soil in legal proceedings.

An immigrant who was never properly notified, shows up five minutes late, and receives a deportation order without making their case hasn't had a hearing. They've been processed.

If the DOJ is structuring these hearings to maximize no-shows — which is what Dojaquez-Torres alleged and which the EOIR refused to deny — that's not just aggressive enforcement. That's rigging the outcome.

One can support fast deportations and object to a system that manufactures default judgments simultaneously.

What's Happening

The DOJ is clearing immigration court backlogs by turning individual hearings into stadium events, targeting unrepresented immigrants, and using no-show removal orders as a feature, not a bug.

The administration won't explain the policy. The agency running it won't comment. The lawyers calling it out have their own financial interests.

What remains is a system where 100 people walk into a room, some don't make it in time, and they get deported without ever speaking.