Trump Fires More Immigration Judges in What Some Suspect Is a Move to Bend Courts to His Will

The Justice Department’s move last week to fire at least eight immigration judges, including four from California, is raising fears among Democratic leaders, academics and others that the Trump Administration is chipping away at due process protections for immigrants.

“These firings made no sense,” said Matt Biggs, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, the union representing the nation’s 700 immigration judges. “When you do the simple math, each judge does 500 to 700 cases a year. Most of them are deportation cases. So what he’s effectively done is he’s increased the already huge backlog that the immigration courts face.”

The Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EOIR, which runs the immigration court system, fired at least two dozen more immigration judges and supervising judges in February, including five from California courts, according to the judge’s union. The administration also eliminated five in leadership positions at the EOIR and removed nine Board of Immigration Appeals judges appointed under Biden. An additional 85 professional court staff members — including 19 judges, interpreters, legal assistants and IT specialists took buyouts after receiving a “Fork in the Road” email that offered federal workers “deferred resignations.”

In a memo sent out after the February firings, EOIR acting Director Sirce E. Owen said immigration judges do not have “multiple layers of removal restrictions” or civil service protection that had previously been given to them.

She referenced Justice Department Chief of Staff Chad Mizelle’s statements that the agency was restoring “accountability so that the Executive Branch officials answer to the President and to the people.”

“Unelected and constitutionally unaccountable (administrative law judges) have exercised immense power for far too long,” Mizelle stated.

Biggs speculated that judges appointed to replace those who left could be “political loyalists.”

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Unlike the federal district courts, the immigration courts lack the same level of judicial independence and their decisions can ultimately be overturned by the U.S. attorney general, though previous administrations have not widely used that power, said Alison Peck, author of “The Accidental History of the U.S. Immigration Courts: War, Fear, and the Roots of Dysfunction.”

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The immigration courts are bottlenecked with 3.7 million pending cases. {snip}

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