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On Friday, 13 judges who had yet to be sworn in and five
assistant chief immigration judges were dismissed without
notice, said Matthew Biggs, president of the International
Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers, which
represents federal workers. Two other judges were fired under
similar circumstances in the last week.
It was unclear if they would be replaced. The U.S. Justice
Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review, which runs
the courts and oversees its roughly 700 judges, did not
immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.
Immigration courts are backlogged with more than 3.7 million
cases, according to Syracuse University's Transactional Records
Access Clearinghouse, and it takes years to decide asylum cases.
There is support across the political spectrum for more judges
and support staff, though the first Trump administration also
pressured some judges to decide cases more quickly.
The Trump administration earlier replaced five top court
officials, including Mary Cheng, the agency's acting director.
Sirce Owen, the current leader and previously an appellate
immigration judge, has issued a slew of new instructions, many
reversing policies of the Biden administration.
Last month, the Justice Department halted financial support for
nongovernmental organizations to provide information and
guidance to people facing deportation but restored funding after
a coalition of nonprofit groups filed a federal lawsuit.
The firings touch on two top Trump priorities: mass deportations
and shrinking the size of the federal government. On Thursday,
it ordered agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees
who had not yet gained civil service protection, potentially
affecting hundreds of thousands of workers. Probationary workers
generally have less than a year on the job.
Biggs, the union official, said he didn't know if the judges'
firings were intended to send a message on immigration policy
and characterized them as part of a campaign across the federal
workforce.
“They're treating these people as if they're not human beings,”
he said. “It's bad all around.”
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