Feds Oust Immigration Judges to Push Faster Deportations

President Trump's second term has brought a quiet but sweeping remake of the nation's immigration courts as well as tougher border rhetoric. In an investigation based on interviews with more than two dozen judges, the New York Times finds the administration has removed over 100 immigration judges, out of roughly 750, while installing at least 143 new permanent and temporary judges, many with backgrounds as immigration prosecutors or military lawyers. Those who grant asylum at higher rates, and those appointed by Democrats, were disproportionately shown the door, according to the Times' analysis.

• "It's a dismantling of the court system," says fired judge Jeremiah Johnson in San Francisco, where the administration has fired almost all of the 21 judges and announced that the immigration court will be closed by the end of the year, with remaining personnel transferred to a court 30 miles away. "At first it was a message that you better fall in line or you're going to get fired," Johnson told NPR earlier this year. Now, "it's a message that your court is going to be closed."

Judges describe explicit pressure to deny asylum and bond, with internal memos warning that rulings seen as favoring immigrants could trigger discipline. "All of us are looking over our shoulders," says Holly D'Andrea, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges union. D'Andrea, an immigration judge in Texas, was appointed during Trump's first administration. Asylum approvals have dropped to under 10% of cases this year, and bond hearings for people who crossed illegally have largely disappeared, leaving many detainees to accept voluntary departure rather than remain locked up while their cases drag on. The Times notes that in recruitment ads, the administration says it is seeking "deportation judges."

One whistleblower, a military lawyer who was asked to serve as a temporary immigration judge, then fired, said in a letter to Congress that an official said asylum should only be granted in extreme circumstances: "Maybe if you were Jewish and escaping Nazi Germany in 1943, you should get it," the fired judge quoted the official as saying. The Justice Department says it's fixing a broken system and enforcing the law as voters demanded. For the full investigation, charts, and more whistleblower accounts, read the original piece at the Times.