The immigration courts are dysfunctional. As of November 2022, there were more than 2 million cases pending nationwide. Many people wait years to have their cases heard, while others (as of this writing) are forced to “remain in Mexico” pending a hearing. These controversial policies make daily headlines, but few people are aware of a structural issue that undergirds all these politicized wranglings: The immigration courts are not really “courts” at all, at least not in the conventional understanding of the term. They are not part of the federal judicial branch, created under Article III of the Constitution. Structurally speaking, the immigration courts are simply an office in the Department of Justice—the nation’s chief law enforcement agency. Immigration judges are lawyers who work for DOJ. They are subject to DOJ personnel policies with respect to hiring, performance standards, and termination. That means that an individual in immigration court finds that their case will be decided by a lawyer who works for the United States—the very party that is suing them. The point is not merely esoteric; a regulatory power called “self-referral” provides that the attorney general—the nation’s chief law enforcement officer—has the authority to re-decide any case in immigration court at any time for any reason. No matter how impartial any individual immigration judge may strive to be, the system ensures that the immigration courts remain under the control of a politically-appointed law enforcement officer who answers directly to the president. This system is, as Senator Edward Kennedy once said, “a recipe for mistakes and abuse.” How did the United States arrive at this highly manipulable system for deciding immigration cases, which can often be a matter of life or death for the individual standing before the immigration court? The Accidental History of the U.S. Immigration Courts explores the history behind the creation of the immigration court system and uncovers a surprising answer: At the outbreak of World War II, officials in the Department of State feared that a “fifth column” of Nazi spies who looked like locals would infiltrate the government. Postwar research has revealed that there was no “fifth column,” just a Nazi hoax to undermine Allied morale. President Roosevelt responded by hastily moving the immigration services to DOJ, where they could work closely with the FBI to catch would-be spies. More than eighty years later, the effect of that propaganda lingers in U.S. policy in the form of an immigration court system that remains under the thumb of law enforcement.