The Justice Department wants to give immigration judges the power to fine attorneys and their clients up to $3,500 for defying court orders. There is just one small catch: the rule explicitly exempts ICE attorneys and every other federal government lawyer from being held in contempt at all. Legal experts are calling it unconstitutional. The administration is calling it "balance."
What the Rule Actually Does
The proposal comes from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the DOJ office that runs the immigration court system, and was published in the Federal Register on July 29th. For the first time ever, immigration judges would be empowered to impose civil fines on attorneys, their clients, and witnesses who violate court orders, from repeatedly failing to show up on time all the way up to making false statements or disorderly conduct.
The fine range is $1,000 to $3,500 per offense. "It is crucial for immigration judges to have every tool available — including the authority to impose civil money penalties — to control the proceedings before them," the DOJ wrote in the proposal. That sounds almost reasonable until you read the next part.
The rule carves out a complete exemption for Department of Homeland Security attorneys and all other federal government employees. They cannot be held in contempt by an immigration judge under this proposal. Period. Full stop. The people on the other side of the courtroom from immigrant defendants are simply not subject to the same rules.
The Justification Is Breathtaking
The DOJ's argument for why government lawyers shouldn't face contempt? They can already be disciplined by the Office of the Inspector General or the Office of Professional Responsibility. Which is a bit like saying you don't need traffic laws because speeding drivers can technically be reported to their HR department.
In actual federal district courts, Article III judges can hold any attorney who appears before them in criminal or civil contempt. Government lawyers, private lawyers, it does not matter. The system works both ways because that is what accountability requires. This proposal creates a completely one-directional enforcement mechanism in an immigration court system that already, under this administration, has been restructured to push for deportations faster and at greater volume.
Gregory Chen, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, did not mince words when speaking to CBS News. "By proposing a completely skewed regulation that empowers judges to hold in contempt only the attorneys for immigrants but not ICE attorneys, the Administration has revealed that its goal has nothing to do with the just and balanced rule of law. Instead, this rule is another effort to target immigration attorneys that falls in line with the President's intimidation tactics."
The Courts This Rule Would Govern Are Already in Freefall
Here is the context this rule lands in. The EOIR lost 370 attorneys in 2025 alone, according to government data analyzed and published by a former FBI analyst. Hundreds of longtime immigration judges have been fired abruptly, without warning or cause, since last year. The people with institutional knowledge and judicial independence are gone, and the DOJ has been advertising for replacements by literally calling the role "deportation judge" in its job postings.
The remaining backlog in immigration courts now sits at more than 3.5 million cases, a number the DOJ itself cited in the proposed rule. Three and a half million cases. In a court system that has been deliberately hollowed out and repopulated with judges hired to move cases toward one specific outcome.
Former immigration judge Karen Donoso Stevens told CBS News exactly what this rule is designed to do inside that environment. "First, scare the judges. Then the judges will scare the attorneys." She described it as part of a broader "culture of fear" being deliberately constructed around immigration proceedings.
The Constitution Has Something to Say About This
Multiple legal experts told CBS News the proposal may be flatly unconstitutional, not just unfair. Immigration courts sit within the executive branch, governed by Article II of the Constitution. The power of contempt, however, belongs exclusively to the judicial and legislative branches. The executive branch does not have contempt authority. This is not a gray area of constitutional law.
Chen called the proposal "constitutionally flawed." Other legal experts CBS News spoke to agreed, warning that the DOJ is attempting to give executive branch officials a power the Constitution reserves for an entirely different branch of government. Whether that concern survives the current judicial climate is another question entirely, but it's the kind of foundational legal problem that would sink this rule in a court system still operating by the rules.
The public has 60 days to submit comments on the proposal through the Federal Register. That comment period is required. Whether the administration reads those comments with anything resembling an open mind is, at this point in history, left as an exercise for the reader.
The Dingo Take
You are supposed to read this rule and think it's about courtroom order. Decorum. Efficiency. Keeping immigration proceedings moving. That is the framing the DOJ is going with, and it almost works if you read the first three sentences and stop there.
But a contempt power that applies only to one side of a courtroom is not a judicial tool. It's a weapon. A one-way pressure valve designed to make immigration attorneys think twice before they push back too hard, file one too many motions, or slow down a deportation the government wants processed by end of week. Meanwhile the ICE attorney who fails to follow a court order, who shows up unprepared, who makes misrepresentations to a judge, walks out of that courtroom without so much as a fine. This is the Trump administration's entire immigration enforcement philosophy in regulatory form: absolute discretion for the government, maximum exposure for everyone else.
The immigration court system is already burning. Hundreds of experienced judges fired. A backlog of 3.5 million cases. Replacement judges recruited with ads that called the job "deportation judge." Now they want to add a contempt power of constitutionally dubious origins that exempts the government's own lawyers by design. If this reads like a system being deliberately engineered to produce only one kind of outcome, that is because it is.
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