Experienced federal prosecutors have quit as cases in Minnesota pile up amid massive anti-ICE protests.

Military lawyers have taken over prosecutorial duties in the U.S. attorney’s office in Minneapolis due to mass resignations by protesting lawyers who represented the bureau.

Judge Advocate General Corps attorneys replaced civilian prosecutors as criminal and immigration cases surge in light of increased ICE activity in Minnesota, Politico reported Friday.

The move was first announced last month, when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the military to identify a pool of 40 judge advocate general officers, 25 of whom he said would serve as special assistant U.S. attorneys in Minneapolis.

“Ideally have significant experience in criminal prosecution, civil litigation, administrative law, immigration law, general litigation, or other related fields,” reads the email request, obtained by CNN.

Those individuals have largely been tasked with prosecuting some 16 protesters charged with resisting and impeding federal agents enacting Donald Trump’s immigration agenda in the area, officially referred to as Operation Metro Surge.

Further still, the military has involved itself in offering replacements among America’s judiciary, reported Reuters. On Thursday, the Justice Department swore in 33 new immigration judges, many of them temporary installments with military backgrounds, in order to catch up on work left behind by a slew of judges fired by the administration.

At least 14 staff members at the U.S. attorney’s office in Minneapolis quit their posts in protest after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed 37-year-old local mother Renee Nicole Good in early January. In the weeks since, employees at the state legal office have claimed that they are overwhelmed by the legal challenges to Operation Metro Surge, and that fruitless attempts to get ICE to comply with the law and court orders have pushed them to a breaking point.

As a result, workloads have piled up and cases have been backlogged. The overwhelming stress leaked through the cracks Tuesday, when a lawyer volunteering with the short-staffed office begged a judge to put her in contempt of court so that she could “get 24 hours of sleep.”

“The system sucks, this job sucks, I am trying with every breath I have to get you what I need,” said attorney Julie Le when pressed as to why the government had failed to follow judicial orders. Le has since been removed from the temporary position and has gone back to her normal job with ICE.