Trump’s New Deportation Chief Is a “F*cking Dope,” Ex-Colleagues Say

One departure involves Civil Division Chief Ana Voss, who was responsible for handling the hundreds of wrongful detention petitions filed in the wake of ICE’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Voss wrote in a recent legal brief that she could not “effectively sort and review” each court order. Besides the attorneys, other employees also resigned from the office, including a victim witness coordinator and an evidence technician.

The DOJ rushed to bring in ten lawyers from other states – five from Washington, D.C. and five from the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, the legal branch of the United States armed forces – to try to fill the gaps. But the office is still “severely understaffed,” according to a former U.S. attorney. Lawyers are busy: 490 immigrants challenged their detention between Dec. 1 and Jan. 26, compared to 375 similar cases in the previous eight years combined.

“They’re in disarray,” said Doug Kelly, who was an assistant U.S. attorney in Minnesota in the 1980s. “I think it’s just demoralizing for the people who are there.”