Federal prosecutors are overwhelmed by increased caseloads due to the Trump administration's immigration crackdown and protest arrests.
When a lawyer representing the Justice Department told a judge in open court this week that she was exhausted and "this job sucks," she said out loud what many federal prosecutors have been privately feeling for months.
The Trump administration's immigration crackdown -- and the push to arrest many of the demonstrators protesting against it -- is straining U.S. attorneys offices across the country. Already overworked, government lawyers in cities that have seen unrest, including Minneapolis, Chicago and Los Angeles, have been rocked by departures, crippling caseloads and directives from Washington that have made them uncomfortable.
Justice Department officials have repeatedly sought reinforcements from other cities and government agencies, even temporarily assigning military lawyers to help deal with the crush.
Department lawyers in several offices told The Wall Street Journal they empathized with Julie Le, a Department of Homeland Security attorney who was detailed to the U.S. attorney's office in Minneapolis to bolster staffing. They said her remarks during a Tuesday court hearing described a working environment with which they have become familiar.
"When you show up, they just throw you in the well and then here we go," Le told the judge, adding that she had stayed awake until 2:35 a.m. that day preparing. She said she had "stupidly" volunteered for the Justice Department role and had been given no direction since starting last month.
Le was on loan from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help the Minneapolis U.S. attorney's office wade through a deluge of cases brought by immigrants challenging the legality of their detentions. The office has been overwhelmed by more than 500 such habeas petitions in the eight weeks since the Trump administration launched a massive deportation effort in the Twin Cities, sparking protests.
As of this week, the office had fewer than 20 attorneys, down from 55 in January of last year, and others are expected to leave in the coming weeks, citing concerns about the Trump administration's approach, people familiar with the matter said.
Visiting prosecutors from Michigan, Wisconsin, the Dakotas and elsewhere have stepped in to fill the void. One person familiar with the Minnesota office said there are so many new faces that "you walk down the hallway and you don't even recognize anyone."
Administration officials say attorneys are swamped with immigration cases now because they are playing catch-up after lax enforcement under the Biden administration. And prosecutors are bringing more charges against demonstrators because assaults against officers are on the rise, they said.
Justice Department spokeswoman Natalie Baldassarre said some of the strain on government lawyers comes from judges not applying the law properly.
"After four years of de facto amnesty under the previous administration, the Trump administration is complying with court orders and fully enforcing federal immigration law," she said.
Minnesota's Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, Daniel Rosen, said in a recent court filing his office "has been forced to shift its already limited resources from other pressing and important priorities," to deal with the "enormous burden" posed by the petitions.
"Paralegals are continuously working overtime. Lawyers are continuously working overtime," Rosen wrote, adding that the office's civil division, which would normally handle such cases, is down 50% in staffing.
The problems extend well beyond Minneapolis. Other offices are stretched thin as they try to fulfill the administration's demand for charges stemming from street protests against immigration enforcement.
This week, department leadership told all 93 U.S. attorneys to find prosecutors who can be sent to other districts on short notice as part of "emergency jump teams" to help investigate and triage violent crime cases, namely assaults on federal law enforcement, according to a memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Justin Simmons, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, recently told Justice Department leadership that he urgently needed reinforcements, either to be sent there or help remotely, to deal with the crushing volume of immigrants challenging their detentions. In a statement, Simmons said his office's civil attorneys are "doing their best to manage the caseload," and "have represented the interests of the American people on this front with professionalism and a degree of legal acumen all Americans should be proud of."
Several judges have chided the Justice Department for missing deadlines or otherwise failing to comply with court orders in scores of cases, saying those failures, even if a result of being overwhelmed, were a problem of the administration's own making.
"Having what you feel are too many detainees, too many cases, too many deadlines, and not enough infrastructure to keep up with it all, is not a defense to continued detention. If anything, it ought to be a warning sign," U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell told Le during the hearing this week.
Among other frustrations, current and former prosecutors in cities including Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., say they have been under pressure to quickly build cases against demonstrators, often without having a chance to fully examine the facts. Some have quit rather than bring charges.
One current prosecutor said the amount of institutional knowledge lost in the exodus of Justice Department lawyers over the past year could take decades to replace.
Over the weekend, Chad Mizelle, the former chief of staff to Attorney General Pam Bondi, tried his hand at recruiting, posting on social media that lawyers who want to be prosecutors and "support President Trump and anti-crime agenda," should privately message him.
"Now is your chance to join the mission and do good for our country," Mizelle wrote on X, which drew criticism from some legal scholars who said the administration can't impose a political litmus test on attorneys hired for career positions.
White House aide Stephen Miller reposted the message, adding, "Patriots needed." At least one Trump-appointed U.S. attorney shared the post to his own feed along with a link to a job posting.