Attorney General Jeff Sessions was speaking to a group of 44 newly hired immigration judges when he said they needed to "restore the rule of law."
He derided immigration lawyers, saying they were working to skirt immigration laws. He blamed fraud for a backlog of immigration cases.
"The tone and the content of the attorney general’s remarks really underscored once again the importance of needing to move the immigration courts from under the Department of Justice, which is a prosecutorial agency," said Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Justices.
The union and other national legal organizations have been arguing to the U.S. Senate that the court should be in its own system, like bankruptcy courts.
This story is from the Fronteras Desk, a collaboration of Southwestern public radio stations, including NPR 89.1. Read more from the Fronteras Desk.