Texas prosecutor who backed Trump's immigration agenda elevated to bench

By Nate Raymond

Feb 3 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Tuesday elevated two top federal prosecutors in Arkansas and Texas to the federal bench, including one who has aggressively sought to carry out President Donald Trump's hardline immigration agenda at the border as a U.S. Attorney.

The Republican-led Senate voted 51-45 in favor of U.S. Attorney Nicholas Ganjei of the Southern District of Texas becoming a life-tenured judge in his district, overcoming opposition from Democrats who criticized his embrace of Trump's immigration enforcement agenda.

It did so shortly after the Senate also voted and 54-40 in favor of U.S. Attorney Clay Fowlkes in the Western District of Arkansas to becoming a district court judge in his district. He has been serving as the district's top prosecutor since 2020.

Those votes brought to 29 the number of judicial nominees the Senate has confirmed during Trump's second term, as the president looks to continue putting his conservative stamp on the judiciary and build on the 234 appointments he made to the bench during his first four years in office.

Ganjei, a former chief counsel to Republican Senator Ted Cruz, has been in his second stint as a U.S. attorney, after serving during Trump's first term in the same role in an acting capacity in the Eastern District of Texas.

Trump, in announcing his nomination in November, described him on social media as an "America First Fighter" and "a fearless proponent of Immigration Enforcement, Strong Borders, and LAW AND ORDER — All very popular in The Lone Star State."

In a speech in July, Ganjei described immigration enforcement as the No. 1 priority for his office, saying that "in recent years we’ve experienced a failure to enforce our nation’s immigration laws."

"That neglect has produced a crisis that is the most important problem facing the United States today," he said.

Since Ganjei took office in January 2025, his office has announced thousands of case against people charged over immigration and related matters.

In the final week of January 2026 alone, his office announced charges against 299 people in such cases as part of Trump administration's "Operation Take Back America" initiative.

During a November hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono questioned Ganjei about whether it was appropriate for him in September to repost a video the U.S. Department of Homeland Security posted on X of immigration-related arrests with the theme song of Pokemon playing and the caption “Gotta Catch ‘Em All."

Ganjei, in reposting the video, had written: "Give their social media guy a raise." He told Hirono the video was about the "worst of the worst" and that "having murderers and those that sexually prey on children off the street is a good thing."

But Hirono said it was clear that immigration authorities are targeting not just people convicted of crimes and that the hearing was "not an opportunity for you to basically toe the regime's line."

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