Executive Control of Agency Adjudication: Capacity, Selection, and Precedential Rulemaking.

The article examines the Trump administration's strategies for presidential control over immigration adjudication within the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), focusing on three mechanisms: capacity-building through hiring more immigration judges (IJs), selection of judges, and precedential rulemaking by the Attorney General. It finds that while the administration substantially increased the number of IJs—leading to more removal orders due to higher case processing capacity—there was little evidence that Trump-appointed judges were ideologically more removal-prone than those appointed by previous presidents, likely due to career bureaucrats' influence in the hiring process and local labor market constraints. In contrast, the Attorney General's use of precedential rulemaking, particularly decisions issuing clear, binding rules (e.g., limiting asylum eligibility for victims of gang and domestic violence), had a significant and immediate impact on increasing removal orders. These findings highlight the relative effectiveness and costs of different presidential control methods in administrative adjudication and suggest broader applicability to other high-volume adjudicatory agencies.