WASHINGTON — More than a quarter of federal immigration judges in California have been fired, retired or resigned since the Trump administration took office.
The cuts follow a trend in immigration courts across the country and critics say represents an attack on the rule of law that will lead to even more delays in an overburdened court system.
The reduction in the number of immigration judges comes as the administration steps up efforts to deport immigrants living in the US illegally. Trump administration officials have cited the immigration court process, where proceedings can drag on for years due to a millions of backlogs, as an obstacle to their goals.
All over the country there were 735 immigration judges last fiscal year, according to the Executive Office of Immigration Enforcement, the Justice Department division that houses immigration courts. Since President Trump took office, at least 97 people have been fired and about the same number have resigned or retired, according to the union representing immigration judges.
California has lost at least 35 immigration judges since January, according to Mobile Pathways, a Berkeley-based organization that analyzes immigration court data. That's down from 132. The steepest drop came in San Francisco's Immigration Court, which lost more than half its bench.
“A non-citizen may win a case, he may lose a case, but the key question is, did he get a hearing?” said Emmett Soper, who worked at the Justice Department before becoming an immigration judge in Virginia in 2017. “Up until this administration took office, I always believed that I was working in a system that, despite its flaws, was fundamentally fair.”
Our government institutions are losing legitimacy
— Amber George, former San Francisco Immigration Court Judge
The administration intends to fill some judge positions as well as appoint a new immigration judge. job listings in Los Angeles, San Francisco and elsewhere, is seeking candidates who want to become a “deportation judge” and “restore the integrity and honor of our nation’s immigration court system.”
The Immigration Judges Union called the job listings “offensive.”
In April, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he was elected to “remove criminals from our country, but the courts don't seem to want me to do it.”
“We can’t judge everyone because it will take, without exaggeration, 200 years,” he added.
National Assn. Immigration judges said they expect a wave of additional retirements later this month.
“My biggest concern is for the people whose lives are left in limbo. What can they hope for when the earth is literally changing every moment they're here?” said Amber George, who was fired last month from the San Francisco Immigration Court. “Our government institutions are losing their legitimacy.”
Because immigration courts fall under the Justice Department, their priorities typically shift from one presidential administration to another, but the sweeping changes underway have renewed long-standing calls for immigration courts to become independent from the executive branch.
Trump administration 36 judges were recently added; 25 of them are military lawyers working in temporary positions.
This summer, the Pentagon authorized up to 600 military lawyers to work for the Justice Department. This comes after the department changed requirements for temporary immigration judges, eliminating the need for immigration law experience.
The Justice Department did not respond to specific questions but said judges must be impartial and that the department has a responsibility to take action against those who demonstrate systemic bias.
Former judges say that because layoffs occurred without notice, remaining court staff are often forced to pick up the slack on reassigned cases.
Removed judges have described a pattern: In the afternoon, sometimes while presiding over hearings, they receive a short email saying they are being removed under Article II of the Constitution. Their names are quickly removed from the Justice Department website.
Jeremiah Johnson is one of five judges recently fired from the San Francisco Immigration Court.
Johnson said he is concerned that the Trump administration is bypassing immigration courts by creating conditions so intolerable that immigrants decide leave your business.
The number of immigrants detained has risen to record levels since January, with more than 65,000 people in custody. Immigrants and lawyers say conditions are inhumanealleging medical neglect, punitive solitary confinement and obstruction of access to counsel. Requests from immigrants for voluntary departure to avoid formal deportation have risen sharply in recent months.
Many of these arrests took place in courthouses, causing immigrants to avoid their legal cases for fear of being detained and forcing judges to rule on their removal in absentia.
“These are ways to force people to leave the United States without seeing a judge, without the due process provided by Congress,” Johnson said. “This is dismantling the judicial system.”
A sign posted outside San Francisco's Immigration Court in October protests enforcement actions by immigration agents. The court has lost more than half of its immigration judges.
(Jeff Chiu/Associated Press)
San Francisco Immigration Court judges have historically had higher approval rates for asylum applications than the national average. Johnson said grant rates depend on a variety of circumstances, including whether a person is in custody or has legal representation, their country of origin and whether they are adults or children.
In November, military judges serving in immigration courts heard 286 cases and issued decisions in 110 cases, according to Mobile Pathways. Military judges ordered deportation 78% of the time, more often than other immigration judges in the same month, who ordered deportation 63% of the time.
“They're probably following directions — and the military is very good at following directions — and it's clear what their directions are as given by this administration,” said Mobile Pathways co-founder Bartlomiej Skorupa. He cautioned that 110 cases was a small sample and that trends would become clearer in the coming months.
Former immigration judges and their advocates say appointing people with little immigration experience and little training results in a steep learning curve and the potential for due process violations.
“There are several concerns here: they are temporary, which may put them under greater pressure to decide cases in a certain way; and they lack experience in immigration law, which is an extremely complex area of practice,” said Ingrid Eagly, a professor of immigration law at the University of California, Los Angeles.
There is a backlog of more than 3 million cases in immigration courts. Anam Petit, who served as an immigration judge in Virginia until September, said the administration's emphasis on ending cases quickly must be balanced with the constitutional right to a fair trial.
“There are not enough judges to hear these cases, and this administration [is] take on the challenge of removing the many experienced and trained judges who can hear these cases and reduce the backlog,” she said.
Additional accounts Introduced this month in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives by Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Rep. Juan Vargas (D-San Diego) would prohibit the appointment of military lawyers as temporary immigration judges and impose a two-year term of service.
“The Trump administration’s willingness to fire experienced immigration judges and hire inexperienced or temporary ‘deportation judges,’ especially in places like California, has fundamentally impacted the landscape of our justice system,” Schiff said in a statement announcing the bill.
The bills stand little chance in the Republican-controlled Congress, but they show how strongly Democrats — especially in California — oppose the administration's changes to immigration courts.
Former immigration judge Tanya Nemer, a dual Lebanese-U.S. citizen, sued the Justice Department and Atty. General Pam Bondi this month claiming she was illegally fired in February because of her gender, ethnicity and political affiliation. In 2023, Nemer ran for judge in Ohio as a Democrat.
Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, seen here at the White House in October, dismissed complaints from a former immigration judge who claimed she was fired without cause.
(Evan Vucci/Associated Press)
Bondi filed a claim in cabinet meeting.
“Just recently, yesterday, I was sued by an immigration judge who we fired,” she said Dec. 2. “One of the reasons she said she was a woman. Last I checked, I was a woman, too.”
Other former judges have challenged their dismissals through the federal Merit Systems Defense Council.
San Francisco-based Johnson is one of them. He appealed this month, saying he was not given grounds for dismissal.
“My goal is to be reinstated,” he said. “My colleagues on the bench, our court was dynamic. It was a good place to work, despite all the pressure.”
