Brain Drain Afflicts DOJ Unit Defending Trump on Immigration (1)

The Justice Department office defending President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda has lost roughly a third of its attorneys over the past year, threatening its ability to fend off challenges to the administration’s deportation policies.

The Office of Immigration Litigation, which had more than 300 attorneys at the start of Trump’s second term, has seen at least 100 retire, quit, or otherwise depart since January 2025, according to three former office attorneys with knowledge of the attrition. Many who left were in mid-level to senior roles and worked across multiple administrations.

The disruption risks undermining an office critical to Trump’s immigration agenda as litigation over the administration’s mandatory detention of undocumented immigrants moves toward the Supreme Court, former office attorneys said.

“It requires a level of seniority and experience to litigate these cases at the scale and on the pace that these types of cases need to be litigated,” said Sarah Wilson, who left her role as an assistant director in the immigration office’s general litigation and appeals section in September 2025.

The office, housed within DOJ’s Civil Division, has helped represent the Department of Homeland Security in some of the highest-profile cases of Trump’s second term. This includes the thousands of habeas cases from detained migrants and litigation over Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to a Salvadoran prison.

Bloomberg Law spoke with eight former office members, most of whom requested anonymity to speak openly about the situation.

Over the past 16 months, attorneys there became demoralized by a mounting caseload and the ousting of multiple office leaders, including veteran DOJ litigator-turned-whistleblower Erez Reuveni, several former employees said. Reuveni, whom DOJ fired last April, accused senior department leaders of coordinating to defy court orders in deportation cases. DOJ has denied the allegation.

The departures have forced DOJ to pull from more than a dozen politically appointed counsel in the Civil Division’s front office to work on immigration cases, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis of court dockets.

The Office of Immigration Litigation is “continuing to fire on all cylinders to defend immigration cases and file denaturalization cases against those who take advantage of American citizenship,” DOJ spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre said.

Depleted Morale

Amid the disruption, employees see anywhere from one to three “goodbye” emails each week, former immigration litigation office attorneys said.

Baldassarre declined to comment on the departures from the litigation office specifically, but noted the “fork in the road” deferred resignation program offered to federal employees last year has allowed DOJ “to run more efficiently and hire new employees who wholeheartedly believe in the mission.” Immigration litigation office attorneys weren’t eligible for this resignation program.

“This Department of Justice is equipped with thousands of talented lawyers committed to restoring public safety and upholding the rule of law,” she said in a statement.

For other office members, the departure of veteran litigators pushed out by the administration made them less willing to remain. This began with David McConnell, who retired as director of the general litigation and appeals section in February 2025 after more than three decades at the office.

McConnell left after he was reassigned to a working group tasked with identifying state and local laws that impeded federal immigration operations.

After Reuveni’s firing a couple months later, many attorneys “started looking for an escape plan,” McConnell said in an interview.

Reuveni outlined in a June 2025 whistleblower disclosure to Congress delays in getting answers from DHS on the status of its compliance with a court order blocking the removal of undocumented immigrants.

Others said they also encountered difficulty getting complete information from client agencies and DOJ leaders. In some instances DHS removed migrants after being advised by DOJ not to, two former office members who spoke anonymously said.

“We weren’t active participants in our own litigation,” Wilson said. “That really devalues a lot of the reason why you would want to work for the Justice Department and the Civil Division in particular.”

The threat of potential disciplinary action also weighed on some litigators, said Jesse Bless, a former office attorney who’s helped others land jobs elsewhere.

Federal judges have repeatedly voiced frustration with DOJ lawyers in immigration cases, with a Rhode Island federal judge earlier this month referring a prosecutor for disciplinary proceedings after he withheld details about a detained immigrant’s murder charge.

Judges have also condemned ICE for violating court orders in immigration cases, as DOJ has argued its lawyers shouldn’t be held responsible for ICE’s compliance.

The volume of litigation over Trump’s immigration policies could be fueling a communication breakdown between DOJ and DHS, said Hans von Spakovsky, a George W. Bush-era DOJ lawyer who’s now a senior legal fellow at the conservative group Advancing American Freedom.

“The overwhelming number of those, I’m sure, makes it difficult for them to keep up with all the lawsuits,” von Spakovsky said.

DHS spokesperson Lauren Bis said the department’s personnel are “working around the clock” with DOJ attorneys to address the impacts of illegal immigration during the Biden administration.

“DHS will always support the Department of Justice in court and continue to put Americans First,” she said in a statement.

Struggling to Fill Gaps

Many of the attorneys who left worked closely with US attorneys’ offices on the more than 45,000 habeas petitions filed by immigrants challenging their detention since January 2025.

District court judges are widely ruling in favor of immigrant habeas petitions, though federal appellate courts have split on the administration’s mandatory detention policy.

The brain drain has given private attorneys defending immigrants an advantage, said Bless, who left the office in 2017 and runs an immigration law practice.

“This is the first time in history that the private bar has the credibility advantage,” Bless said.

Amid the departures, politically appointed counsel have a greater presence on immigration cases, former immigration office attorneys said.

In addition to Civil Division head Brett Shumate and other political leadership at DOJ, at least 14 other “counsel to the assistant attorney general” have been listed on immigration cases over the past 16 months, according to a Bloomberg Law docket analysis.

The immigration litigation office has hired some new lawyers, though two former office attorneys familiar with the hiring put that total at no more than 30. Along with other parts of the Civil Division, the immigration litigation office has begun advertising unprecedented $25,000 signing bonuses.

“There’s a core of people who remain there who really want to try to stick it out,” McConnell said. “But when people start to leave an office in those kinds of numbers, it’s hard to turn that around.”