There’s madness going on around the country—and especially in California—when it comes to immigration. Depending on which news channel you watch, it’s either a crisis, a circus, or both.
And who do our Biz-Souls hosts Rona Lewis and Jeffrey Hansler call when the headlines get hysterical and you can’t sort facts from fabrication?
Judge Daren Margolin.
That’s right. The man’s been on Newsmax, and now he’s stepped up in the world—to the Biz-Souls Podcast. Talk about career highs!
Daren Margolin isn’t just any judge. He’s a retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel, a former Staff Judge Advocate for both General Jim Mattis and General Dave Berger, and a guy who’s presided over everything from immigration courts to felony trials to 10,000 new Marine recruits (talk about Semper Fi).
He recently served as Assistant Chief Immigration Judge for the Executive Office of Immigration Review, where he didn’t just run one of the busiest immigration courts in the country, he built from scratch! The Santa Ana Immigration Court, under his leadership, processed over 28,000 cases annually and was one of the top-performing courts in the country. That’s right, top-performing. We said it. We meant it.
And if that weren’t enough? He supervised dozens of judges (yes, judges need managing), ran courts at multiple locations during a pandemic, and somehow kept it all together while being bombarded with “urgent” memos from D.C. that had about as much relevance to real life as a screenplay rewrite of Gilligan’s Island.
From prosecuting gang members and war criminals to commanding emergency services at Quantico, to coordinating humanitarian efforts after a tsunami—Judge Margolin has done it all, and lived to tell the tale with humility, integrity, and a not-so-subtle side-eye for bureaucracy.
We’re talking:
• What really happens behind courtroom doors?
• What makes a Marine AND a good judge?
• And what kind of leadership actually works when the stakes are life-altering?
If you’ve ever wondered how a guy can keep his cool running a court full of type-A overachievers with legal authority and egos the size of California... Judge Margolin’s got stories for you.
Trust us—this episode is more than order in the court. It’s clarity in the chaos.
Tune in. Because anything’s better than leaving immigration reform up to Congress.