One of the many inexplicably bizarre acts of the Trump administration was the firing of Immigration Judges, given that his push to deport requires enough immigration judges to issue orders of removal. They’re administrative judges, working under the Department of Punishment Justice, which has little tolerance for judges who do their job and refuse to rubber stamp removals with either the speed or reliability demanded of them. And yet, they still need the warm bodies to do as they’re told and wield the stamp. What to do?

Why not deploy JAGs in their place?

Military lawyers,  JAGs for Judge Advocate General, are some of the finest lawyers around, both in terms of competence and integrity. Their mission is to administer the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a parallel legal system to address the conduct of members of the military. What they neither do nor know is immigration law. It isn’t their gig and they never signed up to be immigration lawyers or judges. But hey. they exist, they’re on the payroll and Trump needs someone to follow orders and sign off on removal orders. So why not?

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has approved sending up to 600 military lawyers to the Justice Department to serve as temporary immigration judges, according to a memo reviewed by The Associated Press.

As Ilya Somin explains, the first problem is that it’s unlawful.

“This would be unlawful,” added Rachel VanLandingham, a professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles who was an Air Force JAG.

In particular, VanLandingham said, turning military lawyers into immigration judges would likely violate the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law that bars US troops from participating in civilian law enforcement or “executing the laws,” unless otherwise authorized to do so by the Constitution or Congress. It’s “frightening,” VanLandingham said of the plan, because “the use of military courts to hear civilian cases is the essential component of martial law.”

Sure, JAGs are lawyers, but they’re military lawyers, no less members of the military than any other soldier. They could just as well be deployed with rifle in hand as yellow pad, and as members of the military, they are subject to the Posse Comitatus Act’s prohibition against “executing the law.” And enforcing immigration law is civilian law enforcement, no matter how it’s spun.

Then there’s the problem of competence. Much as they may have expertise in the UCMJ, they have no background in immigration law.

The head of the American Immigration Lawyers Association decried bringing in temporary judges who lack expertise in immigration law, saying “it makes as much as sense as having a cardiologist do a hip replacement.”

“Expecting fair decisions from judges unfamiliar with the law is absurd. This reckless move guts due process and further undermines the integrity of our immigration court system,” said Ben Johnson, the organization’s executive director.

It might be a misstatement to suggest that JAGS will be unfair as immigration judges. Perhaps the better argument is that they will do their best to be fair, but lack the expertise to be adequately knowledgeable about the law they’re being told to apply. If a cardiologist was compelled to do a hip replacement, she might do the best she possibly can, but just doesn’t have the knowledge and experience to do a competent job.

And then there’s the problem of military readiness. If the JAGs are taken away from the work of being military lawyers, that work is left undone and there will be not be enough JAGs to fulfill their mission.

Current and former JAG lawyers have suggested to me that this move could also undermine military readiness, and impair the military justice system. The 600 JAGs the Pentagon may reassign to this function are a substantial proportion of the armed forces’ total of 7300 JAG lawyers. JAGs serving as immigration judges are obviously not performing their regular functions, and those functions may end up getting neglected. What is that mission?

They provide counsel on a wide range of issues, from military justice to international law and operational law. JAG officers can either prosecute or defend service members in courts-martial.

Another very important job is to advise commanding officers on legal implications of military actions. This it to ensure that anything they order troops to do is legal.

The JAG Corps is important part of keeping the US military functioning.

Then again, the Secretary of War doesn’t see the mission of ensuring what troops do to be legal to be a priority. Indeed, Hegseth’s latest act of faux bravado suggests that legality has no role to play in his war-fighting army and just gets in the way of “maximum lethality, not tepid legality.” Who needs military lawyers getting in the way of killing?

But perhaps the biggest problem, and one as yet undiscussed, is that the JAG corp won’t play Trump’s game of being mere warm bodies in his mass deportation scheme. These are men and women for whom honor still has meaning. Just because they’re told to pretend to play judge and issue 250 removal orders a day to get rid of immigrants, legal or not, does not mean they will forsake their integrity to be cogs in the wheel of Trump’s deportation machine.

JAGs may not know much about immigration law, but they know what it means to perform their duty with honor and integrity. Of course, if they do so, they will be of little use to Trump. How many JAG officers will be fired just like the immigration judges who refused to be the administration’s rubber stamp? When their orders are to deport, not decide, that may not sit well with a corp of lawyers whose primary duty is to prevent the government from engaging in illegal acts.