Florida to Use Soldiers As Immigration Judges — How Is This Legal?

In an unprecedented move, Florida’s Ron DeSantis appears to have come to an agreement with President Trump to deputize National Guard officers as immigration judges at ‘Alligator Alcatraz.'

Welcome back to our crash course in the U.S. Constitution — everything you need to know to better debate those aunts and uncles of yours on Facebook, without the law school price or the weird professors. Each issue tackles a different big idea that’s shaped American life: free speech, due process, equal protection, search and seizure, etc. Expect real-world examples, understandable explanations, and the occasional lawyer joke (now you’ve been warned, so you can’t be upset). Whether you're a news junkie, a student, or just someone who wants to finally understand what “strict scrutiny” actually means, you’ll leave each issue a little smarter — and way more equipped to fight mistruths. The law was meant to be understood by the people. This series is here to prove it.

Today’s issue: Florida to Use Soldiers As Immigration Judges — How Is This Legal?

✅ NOTE: In an unprecedented move, Florida’s Ron DeSantis appears to have come to an agreement with President Trump to deputize National Guard officers as immigration judges at the controversial ‘Alligator Alcatraz.” Can they do that?

Previous Issue: The True Cost of These Medicaid Cuts — Goodbye, America (available here)

Next Issue: Some Blue States Begin Unprecedented Nuclear Option: We’re Not Paying Federal Taxes — Can They Do That?

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NOTE TO PAID SUBSCRIBERS:

💡As always, paid subscribers can find the embedded audio voiceover below the “Part 1” header of this issue.

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ConLaw Lesson #50: Florida to Use Soldiers As Immigration Judges — How Is This Legal?

It’s not a hypothetical anymore. The president has seemingly OK’ed Florida’s wildly unprecedented plan that’s been in the works for months. It’s a proposal to handle the backlog in immigration cases — most of which would, in this instance, be held at the new state detention and deportation facility being grotesquely described as “Alligator Alcatraz.”

That plan?

In a strange plot twist that sounds like it was taken from a speculative, dystopian legal thriller, Florida wants to run its own temporary immigration courts — staffed not by qualified judges, but rather, by National Guard officers, essentially hand-picked by Governor Ron DeSantis and deputized by President Trump. These officers are JAG’s (Judge Advocate General), military attorneys who are trained under the Uniform Code of Military Justice…now likely to sit in judgment over civilians — reviewing asylum claims, signing off on deportations, and doing it all under the banner of federal authority.

And it raises the kind of constitutional questions that make federal judges stare into the middle distance and quietly whisper, “Oh no” — both because it raises serious concerns, and because the argument for it being within a loophole isn’t totally outrageous (but also kind of is).

And although this new setup may be politically popular in some corners, it has the constitutional structure of a Jenga tower built by angry toddlers.

So today, let’s talk about Florida’s plan to use National Guard JAG officers as immigration judges — which is just as ridiculous a sentence as it sounds. Whether it’s constitutional, what it means for the rule of law, and why this is such a dangerous precedent for the future of America.

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Part 1: The Worrisome Context

This is the scary part most have forgotten.

(Full audio narration by me, as well as the full text, available for paid subscribers. These lessons take hours to put together, so we’d love to have you on the journey.)