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.

The military will begin sending groups of 150 attorneys — both military and civilians — to the Justice Department “as soon as practicable,” and the military services should have the first round of people identified by next week, according to the Aug. 27 memo.

The effort comes as the Trump administration more regularly turns to the military as it cracks down on illegal immigration through ramped-up arrests and deportations. Its growing role in the push includes troops patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border, National Guard members being sent into U.S. cities to support immigration enforcement efforts, housing people awaiting deportation on military bases and using military aircraft to carry out deportations.

The administration’s focus on illegal immigration has added strain to the immigration courts, which were already dealing with a massive backlog of roughly 3.5 million cases that has ballooned in recent years. An organization for immigration lawyers called the new directive a “destructive” move meant to undermine the courts.

At the same time, more than 100 immigration judges have been fired or left voluntarily after taking deferred resignations offered by the Trump administration, their union says. In the most recent round of terminations, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers said in July that at least 17 immigration judges had been fired “without cause” in courts across the country.

That has left about 600 immigration judges, union figures show, meaning the Pentagon move would double their ranks.

The Justice Department, which oversees the immigration courts, requested the assistance from the Defense Department, according to the memo sent by the Pentagon’s executive secretary to his DOJ counterpart. The military lawyers’ duties as immigration judges will initially last no more than 179 days but can be renewed, it said.

A DOJ spokesperson referred questions about the plan to the Defense Department, where officials directed questions to the White House.

A White House official said Tuesday that the administration is looking at a variety of options to help resolve the significant backlog of immigration cases, including hiring additional immigration judges. The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the matter should be “a priority that everyone — including those waiting for adjudication — can rally around.”

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.

The memo stressed that the additional attorneys are contingent on availability and that mobilizing reserve officers may be necessary. Plus, the document said DOJ would be responsible for ensuring that anyone sent from the Pentagon does not violate the federal prohibition on using the military as domestic law enforcement, known as the Posse Comitatus Act.

The administration faced a setback on its efforts to use troops in unique ways to combat illegal immigration and crime, with a court ruling Tuesday that it “willfully” violated federal law by sending National Guard troops to Los Angeles in early June.

It is not immediately clear what impact shifting that number of military attorneys would have on the armed forces’ justice system. The attorneys, called judge advocates, have a range of duties much like civilian lawyers, from carrying out prosecutions, acting as a defense attorney or offering legal advice.

Pentagon officials did immediately offer details on where any of the 600 attorneys will be drawn from and whether they will come from active duty or the reserves.

Until she was abruptly fired in July, former supervising judge Jennifer Peyton administered the intensive training that all judges in Chicago undergo before working in some of the busiest immigration courts in the country. After the weekslong training, new judges are paired with an experienced mentor and have a two-year probationary period.

Peyton doubted that military attorneys would be able to master the complexities of immigration law without that rigorous process. She also said it wasn’t clear how they would handle the hundreds, or sometimes thousands, of cases on just a Chicago immigration judge’s docket each year.

“Six months is barely enough time to start to figure out the firehose of information and training,” she said.

Peyton also was concerned that Trump’s move didn’t supply more administrative workers, including translators, whom judges rely on to make decisions. The stakes, she said, were life or death for people who would come before the new judges.

“None of it makes sense unless you were intentionally trying to weaken the immigration courts,” Peyton said.

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell pleaded not guilty Wednesday to conspiracy, fraud and obstruction charges stemming from an alleged romantic relationship with her bodyguard.

The Democrat appeared in federal court for the first time since a grand jury last month returned an 18-count indictment against Cantrell and her bodyguard, Jeffrey Vappie, outlining what prosecutors described as their yearslong scheme to conceal an affair while the two traveled, wined and dined together on taxpayers’ dime.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen Wells Roby ordered the mayor to surrender her passport and restricted her travel, instructing her to seek approval from probation officers to leave southeast Louisiana. Roby also told Cantrell she was not allowed to be in contact with Vappie.

Vappie has already pleaded not guilty to charges of wire fraud and making false statements after he was indicted in July 2024. He is scheduled to appear in court Friday for the additional charges.

Cantrell, the first female mayor in New Orleans’ 300-year history, was elected twice but now becomes the city’s first mayor to be charged while in office in a state with a reputation for public corruption. She has only four months before she leaves office under term limits.

The mayor once known for her outspoken persona has kept quiet about the charges in the weeks since the 18-count indictment against her and Vappie was announced in mid-August. She did not acknowledge the indictment during public appearances to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina late last month.

While walking into the court building, Cantrell remained silent as a mob of reporters pressed her with questions. After the arraignment, her attorney, Eddie Castaing, declined to comment on the case but said it would not affect the mayor’s ability to govern the city.

“She can continue to work with city employees, she just couldn’t talk about the case so that’s not going to impede any of the city operations, so it’s business as usual,” Castaing said.

Cantrell, who exited court through a side door to avoid reporters, was already receding into the background of city affairs over the past year and offered no apparent resistance to President Donald Trump’s suggestion earlier this month to send the National Guard and federal agents to New Orleans even as other Democrats bristled.

She’s also been cast as a pariah by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner, who announced on Sept. 3 that Cantrell was suspended from involvement in federal transactions with HUD. The City Council issued a statement last week saying it had reassured the Housing Authority of New Orleans and the Office of Community Development that other city officials could sign federal contracts instead.

At times, she and her allies have said the blowback she is experiencing is tinged by double standards she faces as a Black woman. Cantrell said earlier this year, before to the indictment, that she has faced “very disrespectful, insulting, in some cases kind of unimaginable” treatment.

Cantrell and Vappie used WhatsApp for more than 15,000 messages, where they professed their love and plotted to harass a citizen who helped expose their relationship, delete evidence, make false statements to FBI agents “and ultimately to commit perjury before a federal grand jury,” acting U.S. Attorney Michael Simpson said. Vappie’s 14 trips with Cantrell cost taxpayers $70,000, not including Cantrell’s own travel costs, according to the indictment.

In a WhatsApp exchange, the indictment says, Vappie recalled accompanying Cantrell to Scotland in October 2021 on a dreamy trip “where it all started.”

Cantrell, whose husband died in 2023, has denied having anything more than a professional relationship with Vappie. She lashed out at associates who raised questions about the amount of time she spent with her bodyguard, including on wine-tasting trips and in a city-owned apartment, court records show.

Cantrell joins the ranks of more than 100 people brought up on corruption charges in Louisiana in the past two decades, said Rafael Goyeneche, a former prosecutor who is president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, a watchdog group.

The Democratic governors of Washington, Oregon and California announced Wednesday that they created an alliance to safeguard health policies, believing the Trump administration is putting Americans’ health and safety at risk by politicizing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The move comes with COVID-19 cases rising and as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has restructured and downsized the CDC and attempted to advance anti-vaccine policies that are contradicted by decades of scientific research. Concerns about staffing and budget cuts were heightened after the White House sought to oust the agency’s director and some top CDC leaders resigned in protest.

“The CDC has become a political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science, ideology that will lead to severe health consequences,” the governors said in a joint statement.

“The dismantling of public health and dismissal of experienced and respected health leaders and advisers, along with the lack of using science, data, and evidence to improve our nation’s health are placing lives at risk,” California State Health Officer Erica Pan said in the news release.

Washington state Health Secretary Dennis Worsham said public health is about prevention — “preventing illness, preventing the spread of disease, and preventing early, avoidable deaths.”

“Vaccines are among the most powerful tools in modern medicine; they have indisputably saved millions of lives,” Oregon Health Director Sejal Hathi said. “But when guidance about their use becomes inconsistent or politicized, it undermines public trust at precisely the moment we need it most.”

Partnership seeks expert medical advice

The partnership plans to coordinate health guidelines by aligning immunization plans based on recommendations from respected national medical organizations, said a joint statement from Gov. Bob Ferguson of Washington, Gov. Tina Kotek of Oregon and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew G. Nixon shot back in a statement Wednesday that “Democrat-run states that pushed unscientific school lockdowns, toddler mask mandates, and draconian vaccine passports during the COVID era completely eroded the American people’s trust in public health agencies.”

He said the administration’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices “remains the scientific body guiding immunization recommendations in this country, and HHS will ensure policy is based on rigorous evidence and Gold Standard Science, not the failed politics of the pandemic.”

Florida announced Wednesday that it plans to phase out all childhood vaccine mandates as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis plans to curb vaccine requirements and other health mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, public health agencies across the country have started taking steps to ensure their states have access to vaccines after U.S. regulators came out with new policies that limited access to COVID-19 shots.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s health department said last week it is seeking advice from medical experts and its own Immunization Advisory Committee on COVID-19 vaccines and other immunizations for the fall respiratory season.

The health department plans to provide citizens “with specific guidance by the end of September to help Illinois health care providers and residents make informed decisions about vaccination and protecting themselves and their loved ones,” Health Director Sameer Vohra said in a statement.

A woman branded as the “Ketamine Queen” pleaded guilty Wednesday to selling Matthew Perry the drug that killed him, becoming the fifth and final defendant charged in Perry’s overdose death to admit guilt.

Jasveen Sangha pleaded guilty to five federal charges, including providing the ketamine that led to Perry’s death. Her trial had been planned to start later this month.

Perry’s mother, Suzanne Perry, and his stepfather, “Dateline” reporter Keith Morrison, sat in the audience. It was their first time attending court proceedings since the announcement of the indictments one year ago.

Wearing tan jail garb, Sangha stood in court Wednesday next to her attorney Mark Geragos as she repeated “guilty” five times when U.S. District Court Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett asked for her pleas.

Before that, she answered “yes, your honor” to dozens of procedural questions, hedging slightly when the judge asked if she knew the drugs she was giving to co-defendant and middleman Erik Fleming were going to Perry.

“There was no way I could tell 100%,” she said. She later added, to a similar question on vials of ketamine she gave to Fleming, that “I didn’t know if all of them or some of them” were bound for Perry. The comments didn’t affect her plea agreement.

Prosecutors had cast Sangha, a 42-year-old citizen of the U.S. and the U.K., as a prolific drug dealer who was known to her customers as the “Ketamine Queen,” using the term often in press releases and court documents.

Making good on a deal she signed on Aug. 18, Sangha pleaded guilty to one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, three counts of distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death.

“She feels horrible about all of this. Nobody wants to be in the chain of causation for lack of a better term,” Geragos said outside the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. “She feels horrible and she’s felt horrible since day one.”

Sangha admitted to selling drugs directly to 33-year-old Cody McLaury, who died from an overdose in 2019. McLaury had no connection to Perry.

Prosecutors agreed to drop three other counts.

Geragos, whose other clients have included Michael Jackson, Chris Brown and the Menendez brothers, told the judge that the deal was reached “after a robust back-and-forth with the government.”

The final plea deal came a year after federal prosecutors announced the indictments in Perry’s Oct. 28, 2023 death after a sweeping investigation.

A federal website that informs the public about what information agencies are collecting and allows for public comment went down last weekend, and it has only been partially restored. The outage has raised concerns among advocates who already were troubled by the disappearance of data sets from government websites after President Donald Trump began his second term.

The https://www.reginfo.gov/public/ website went offline at the end of last week and was partially restored this week. Data was missing after Aug. 1, according to dataindex,us, a collective of data scientists and advocates who monitor changes in federal data sets.

As of Thursday, the website’s landing page said, it was “currently undergoing revisions.” Emailed inquiries to the Office of Management and Budget and General Services Administration weren’t returned on Thursday.

In February, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s official public portal for health data, data.cdc.gov, was taken down entirely but subsequently went back up. Around the same time, when a query was made to access certain public data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s most comprehensive survey of American life, users for several days got a response that said the area was “unavailable due to maintenance” before access was restored.

Researchers Janet Freilich and Aaron Kesselheim examined 232 federal public health data sets that had been modified in the first quarter of this year and found that almost half had been “substantially altered,” with the majority having the word “gender” switched to “sex,” they wrote last month in The Lancet medical journal.

Former Census Bureau official Chris Dick, who is part of the dataindex.us team, said Thursday that no one is quite sure what is going on with the regulatory affairs website, whether there was an update with technical difficulties because of staffing shortages from job cuts or something more nefarious.

“This is key infrastructure that needs to come back,” Dick said. “Usually, you can fix this quickly. It’s not super normal for this to go on for days.”

The first domino in a growing national redistricting battle is likely to fall Wednesday as the Republican-controlled Texas legislature is expected to pass a new congressional map creating five new winnable seats for the GOP.

The vote follows prodding by President Donald Trump, eager to stave off a midterm defeat that would deprive his party of control of the House of Representatives, and weeks of delays after dozens of Texas Democratic state lawmakers fled the state in protest. Some Democrats returned Monday, only to be assigned round-the-clock police escorts to ensure their attendance at Wednesday’s session. Those who refused to be monitored were confined to the House floor, where they protested on a livestream Tuesday night.

Furious national Democrats have vowed payback for the Texas map, with California’s legislature poised to approve new maps adding more Democratic-friendly seats later this week. The map would still need to be approved by that state’s voters in November.

Normally, states redraw maps once a decade with new census figures. But Trump is lobbying other conservative-controlled states like Indiana and Missouri to also try to squeeze new GOP-friendly seats out of their maps as his party prepares for a difficult midterm election next year.

In Texas, Democrats spent the day before the vote continuing to draw attention to the extraordinary lengths the Republicans who run the legislature were going to ensure it takes place. Democratic state Rep. Nicole Collier started it when she refused to sign what Democrats called the “permission slip” needed to leave the House chamber, a half-page form allowing Department of Public Safety troopers to follow them. She spent Monday night and Tuesday on the House floor, where she set up a livestream while her Democratic colleagues outside had plainclothes officers following them to their offices and homes.

Dallas-area Rep. Linda Garcia said she drove three hours home from Austin with an officer following her. When she went grocery shopping, he went down every aisle with her, pretending to shop, she said. As she spoke to The Associated Press by phone, two unmarked cars with officers inside were parked outside her home.

“It’s a weird feeling,” she said. “The only way to explain the entire process is: It’s like I’m in a movie.”

The trooper assignments, ordered by Republican House Speaker Dustin Burrows, was another escalation of a redistricting battle that has widened across the country. Trump is pushing GOP state officials to tilt the map for the 2026 midterms more in his favor to preserve the GOP’s slim House majority, and Democrats nationally have rallied around efforts to retaliate.

House Minority Leader Gene Wu, from Houston, and state Rep. Vince Perez, of El Paso, stayed overnight with Collier, who represents a minority-majority district in Fort Worth.

On Tuesday, more Democrats returned to the Capitol to tear up the slips they had signed and stay on the House floor, which has a lounge and restrooms for members.

Dallas-area Rep. Cassandra Garcia Hernandez called their protest a “slumber party for democracy,” and she said Democrats were holding strategy sessions on the floor.

“We are not criminals,” Houston Rep. Penny Morales Shaw said.

Collier said having officers shadow her was an attack on her dignity and an attempt to control her movements.

Burrows brushed off Collier’s protest, saying he was focused on important issues, such as providing property tax relief and responding to last month’s deadly floods. His statement Tuesday morning did not mention redistricting, and his office did not immediately respond to other Democrats joining Collier.

“Rep. Collier’s choice to stay and not sign the permission slip is well within her rights under the House Rules,” Burrows said.

Under those rules, until Wednesday’s scheduled vote, the chamber’s doors are locked, and no member can leave “without the written permission of the speaker.”

To do business Wednesday, 100 of 150 House members must be present. The GOP plan is designed to send five additional Republicans from Texas to the U.S. House. Texas Democrats returned to Austin after Democrats in California launched an effort to redraw their state’s districts to take five seats from Republicans.

Democrats also said they were returning because they expect to challenge the new maps in court.