Utah News Dispatch
Utah judge without immigration experience is among military lawyers picked for immigration court
A building that houses the Salt Lake City Immigration Court and the Immigrations and Custom Enforcement field office in Salt Lake City is pictured on Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
Utah’s newest immigration judge has a long legal resume. Absent from his credentials: experience in the immigration system.
Judge Matthew Andrasko, who spent the last decade as an attorney adviser for the U.S. Air Force, isn’t alone. He’s among 25 military lawyers across several states who made the same recent career change, the U.S. Department of Justice announced last month.
The shift comes after the Trump administration fired immigration judges in waves this year and as it continues to tap the military for help with enforcement.
Critics say it’s absurd to expect fair decisions from newcomers who are unfamiliar with the law. Beyond that, some argue the move violates a ban on using the military for law enforcement.
Andrasko, reached by phone Friday, declined comment and referred Utah News Dispatch to a spokesperson for the Justice Department’s Executive Office of Immigration Review, which oversees immigration courts.
The office wouldn’t comment on those criticisms. In a new federal rule outlining the plan, it said a national backlog of cases topped 4.1 million by January 2025 and the office has the authority to make the change.
It also said there’s no reason to pass over federal employees “with stellar credentials” because they don’t have experience in immigration law. Previously, the job was only open to immigration judges, administrative law judges, and Justice Department attorneys with 10 years of experience in immigration.
The new crop of judges is on a temporary six-month assignment, but the department said the term could be extended.
Separately, the Justice Department hired 11 judges for permanent roles, mostly in Texas and Southern states. The majority have an immigration background, and some have military ties.
In Utah, many attorneys understood the new judge, while assigned here, would hear cases from other states. But lawyer Christopher Vizcardo said he represented a client in Adrasko’s courtroom in a brief hearing last week.
“He was very polite, and he was very kind, very reasonable with my client,” Vizcardo said.
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Utah began the year with five immigration judges but dropped down to two over the summer. One judge took a buyout, another left the job abruptly and a third was fired. As a result, the system has slowed down significantly, Vizcardo said.
“Everything is taking longer now, and I think that for my clients that do fear returning to their home country, they have an interest in having their case adjudicated as soon as possible,” Vizcardo said. “So in that sense, I’m happy that we have more help because I think in the long term, it’s going to be good for my clients so they can finally get legal status in the United States.”
But he’s also concerned about how well the new temporary judges can handle complex legal arguments and convoluted, yearslong cases. He noted they may feel pressure to churn fast as they try to clear the backlog.
“If they’re too quick about making their decision, I don’t think that that’s good for the due process of my clients, either,” Vizcardo said.
Attorney Nicholle Pitt White said the change comes with unknowns but she agrees it may work in her clients’ favor.
“We’ve found that a lot of judges — when they’re new to the bench, especially if they don’t have a lot of prior experience — tend to give more favorable outcomes to our clients in certain situations where another immigration judge may have denied their case,” she said. It’s not clear how much instruction the new judges are getting. In the rule, the government said they’ll receive the same continuous training as other judges – six weeks – but NPR has reported they’ll get just two weeks.
