On paper, having JAGs on deck to clear the backlog of illegal alien asylum cases seemed like a brilliant idea. After all JAGs are patriots. Right?

That CBS TV show aside, the idea that bringing in JAGs is an answer is way too optimistic. It may speed up asylum claims, but in which direction?

Probably the best test of this kind of the JAG system were the Gitmo trials and the people involved bent over backward to appease the worst Islamic terrorists around. They dragged out the cases endlessly, refused to listen to evidence and were instrumental in turning them into endless trials in which justice would never be done.

I’m not sure who decided that JAGs, unlike so much of the rest of the rot in the military, were the answer, but it was a bad answer.

Consider folks like this dealing with illegal alien asylum claims.

In 2008, Frakt, who had served nearly ten years with the Air Force JAG Corps before becoming a professor at Western State University College of Law and director of its Criminal Law Practice Center, volunteered to defend Guantánamo prisoners in the military commission trials. He was assigned to represent Mohammed Jawad, a 17-year-old Afghani detained in 2002 for allegedly throwing a hand grenade at two American soldiers and their interpreter in Afghanistan.

Frakt recounted for the HLS audience how he bombarded the court with motions, including a successful motion to suppress two inculpatory statements obtained from Jawad at Bagram prison in Afghanistan, on the basis that they were produced by torture. He also filed a motion to dismiss a charge alleging that Jawad had committed a “war crime,” arguing that the grenade was a lawful weapon used in a war zone against a lawful target.

Frakt’s article includes a detailed account of his argument on his motion to dismiss. New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis has described the argument as “a remarkable display of legal and moral courage.”

You don’t want these people acting as immigration judges. You won’t like the outcome.