Two new judges joined Detroit Immigration Court last week. The appointments follow two others made to the state’s only immigration court in April and March, meaning a majority of the judges on Michigan’s only immigration court started their jobs this year.
And none of the new judges who preside over cases that frequently lead to deportations have any apparent recent immigration court experience, according to information provided by the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the agency within the U.S. Department of Justice that oversees immigration courts.
The new judges take the bench as immigration courts across the nation grapple with substantial turnover − in the last year, hundreds of judges have retired or been fired as President Donald Trump’s administration leans into its promise to execute the largest mass deportation in the country’s history.
At the same time, courts have a suffocating backlog of cases. As of March, Detroit Immigration Court had a backlog of more than 31,000 cases, according to a records project coordinated by Syracuse University.
Two of the new Detroit judges are among 77 judges recently sworn in, what federal officials are calling the largest class of new immigration judges in history.
“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,” said Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche in a statement last week announcing the new class of judges.
The federal government provides conflicting information on what is required to become an immigration court judge. While previous experience in an immigration court is not required, it is preferred, according to the Executive Office for Immigration Review.
An EOIR website says candidates must have a law degree, be active in a state bar and have “seven years of post-bar admission legal experience.” A different DOJ website lists the law degree and state bar admission but only states, “applicants must possess qualifying post-licensure litigation or adjudication experience.” It does not indicate a seven-year time frame.
All four new Detroit Immigration Court judges earned law degrees at least 10 years ago, but not all have practiced any law consistently in Michigan. One served as a metro Detroit prosecutor while another stopped practicing law to pursue an advanced degree from Hillsdale College, a well-known conservative institution. The third primarily practiced in federal courts in Illinois and Indiana, while the biography for the fourth new judge doesn’t include any work history at all for the last 13 years.
Denise Kallas has substantial experience in Michigan criminal courts; proceedings in immigration court are civil, not criminal. Until her appointment, she served nearly 30 years as a prosecutor in Oakland County. A spokesperson for Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald, a Democrat, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Kallas.
Kallas earned her law degree from the University of Detroit Mercy law school in 1995. She is supposed to start hearing cases in May.
Jill K. Krishnan has the most known immigration law experience of any of the four recently appointed Detroit judges. From 2008 to 2013 she served as an assistant chief counsel with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Atlanta, according to a news release. It’s unclear what she’s done since then: the news release doesn’t list any experience since 2013. A court spokeswoman did not immediately respond to questions about Krishnan’s recent work history.
Krishnan, who earned her law degree from Vanderbilt University in 2004, is a member of the New York State Bar and was set to start hearing cases in March.
Christopher Cooper was appointed in April and supposed to start hearing cases the same month. Since 1999, he primarily practiced in federal courts in Indiana and Illinois, according to a news release announcing his appointment. From 2017 to 2023, he also served as a judge pro tem − essentially a substitute judge − in an Indiana court that’s similar to a Michigan district court. He primarily presided in a felony courtroom “on as needed basis,” the news release states.
Cooper earned his law degree from the New England School of Law in 1995 and is a member of both the Illinois and Indiana state bars.
John E. Moriarty is the other newest judge, appointed last week alongside Kallas. He’s licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania, having earned a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 2016. In the summer of 2021, he started pursuing a Ph.D. in politics at Hillsdale College’s Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship, according to a news release.
His law license became inactive in August 2022, but he reactivated it in February of this year, Pennsylvania records show. It was not inactive due to any disciplinary issue, a staff member with the Judicial System of Pennsylvania told the Free Press.
The Detroit Immigration Court website now lists eight judges assigned to Detroit. In addition to the four new judges, the remaining named on the site are Katherine Hansen, Mark J. Jebson, David Paruch and Ian R. Simons.
Paruch retired late last year, in part over his perception the administration changed its focus from due process to, “grind it out and deport them,” he recently told the Free Press.
Before his appointment, Paruch worked as a private lawyer in Detroit Immigration Court for more than 30 years. Jebson worked for a dozen years representing the government in immigration court, while Hansen served more than a decade as a judge in Detroit’s 36th District Court. Simons worked as a lawyer for ICE for seven years before his appointment to the bench.
Since the start of the new financial year in October, federal officials have hired 153 new immigration court judges across the country. That’s the most in any one year in the agency’s history, according to a news release.
Reach Dave Boucher at dboucher@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: New Detroit immigration court judges lack immigration law experience
Reporting by Dave Boucher, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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