HUNDREDS of military and civilian lawyers at the US Department of Defence will temporarily serve as immigration judges, despite lacking the training, officials said.

A Pentagon spokesman said on Tuesday that the lawyers would “augment existing resources to help further combat a backlog of cases by presiding over immigration hearings.”

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has approved sending up to 600 military lawyers to the Justice Department, with groups of 150 expected to begin work “as soon as practicable” for initial 179-day terms.

American Immigration Lawyers Association executive director Ben Johnson compared the plan to having “a cardiologist do a hip replacement.”

“Expecting fair decisions from judges unfamiliar with the law is absurd,” he told Reuters.

“This reckless move guts due process and further undermines the integrity of our immigration court system.”

The initiative is the latest in President Donald Trump’s efforts to expand the military’s role in domestic immigration enforcement, which has included deploying National Guard troops to cities, detaining people at military bases and using military aircraft for deportations.

On Tuesday, a court ruled that the administration had “wilfully” broken federal law by sending National Guard troops to Los Angeles in June.