California has lost more than a quarter of its immigration judges this year

WASHINGTON – More than a quarter of federal immigration judges in California have been fired, retired or quit since the Trump administration began.

The reduction follows a trend in immigration courts across the country and, critics say, is an attack on the law that will lead to further delays in the already overburdened court system.

The cuts to immigration judges come as the administration ramps up efforts to deport immigrants living in the US illegally. Trump administration officials have described the immigration court process, where hearings can take years amid a backlog of millions of cases, as an obstacle to their goals.

Nationwide, there were 735 immigration judges last fiscal year, according to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Justice Department’s division that houses immigration courts. At least 97 have been fired since President Trump took office and about the same number have resigned or retired, according to the union that represents 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 biggest decline occurred in the San Francisco Immigration Court, which lost more than half of its bench.

“A non-citizen may win his case, he may lose his case, but the important question is, did they get the case?” said Emmett Soper, who worked at the Department of Justice before becoming an immigration judge in Virginia in 2017. “Until this administration, I was always convinced that I was working in a system that, despite its faults, was fundamentally fair.

The administration intends to fill other judicial positions, and lists of immigration judge jobs in Los Angeles, San Francisco and elsewhere are looking for candidates who want to be a “deportation judge” and “restore integrity and honor to our Nation’s Immigration Court system.”

The immigration judges union called the job listing “insulting.”

Trump wrote on Truth Social in April that he was elected to “get criminals out of our country, but the courts don’t seem to want me to do that.”

“We cannot blame everyone, because doing so will take 200 years without exaggeration,” he added.

The National Assn. Immigration Justice said they expect a wave of additional retirements by the end of this month.

“What worries me the most are the people whose lives are in crisis. What can they rely on when the world is changing every time they are here?” said Amber George, who was deported last month in San Francisco Immigration Court. “Our public institutions are losing their legitimacy.”

Because the immigration courts operate under the Department of Justice, their priorities typically shift from one presidential administration to the next, but the drastic changes have renewed long-standing calls for the immigration courts to be independent from the executive branch.

The Trump administration recently added 36 judges; 25 of them are military lawyers working in temporary positions.

This summer, the Pentagon authorized about 600 military lawyers to work for the Justice Department. That happened after the department changed the requirements for temporary immigration judges, eliminating the need for legal information on immigration.

The Justice Department did not respond to specific questions, but said judges should be impartial and the agency has an obligation to take action against those who demonstrate systemic bias.

The former judges said that, because the terminations occurred without advance notice, the remaining court staff struggled to expedite reassigned cases.

Dismissed judges describe a pattern: In the afternoon, sometimes when they are presiding over a case, they receive a short email saying they are being terminated pursuant to Article II of the Constitution. Their names were immediately removed from the Department of Justice’s website.

Jeremiah Johnson is one of five judges recently fired from San Francisco’s Immigration Court.

Johnson said he is concerned that the Trump administration is bypassing the immigration courts by making conditions so unbearable that immigrants decide to withdraw their cases.

The number of detained immigrants has risen to record highs since January, with more than 65,000 detained. Immigrants and advocates say the conditions are inhumane, with allegations of medical neglect, solitary confinement and restricted access to lawyers. Immigrant applications for voluntary departure, which avoids legal deportation, have increased in recent months.

Most of those arrests happen in the courts, which caused the immigrants to avoid legal charges because they were afraid of being arrested and forced the judges to issue an order for them to be removed in their absence.

“Those are ways to get people out of the United States without seeing a judge, without due process provided by Congress,” Johnson said. “It’s a dismantling of the court system.”

San Francisco Immigration Court judges have historically had higher approval rates than the national average. Johnson said grant amounts depend on a number of factors, including whether the person is incarcerated or has a legal representative, the country of birth and whether they are an adult or children.

In November, military judges serving in immigration courts heard 286 cases and issued 110 decisions, according to Mobile Pathways. Military judges issued deportation orders in 78% of cases – more often than other immigration judges that month, which ordered deportations in 63% of cases.

“Maybe they’re following directions – and the military is very good at following directions – and it’s clear what directions are being given by these commanders,” said Mobile Pathways founder Bartlomiej Skorupa. He warned that the 110 cases were a small sample size and that trends would become clearer in the coming months.

Former immigration judges and their lawyers say appointing people with no immigration experience and little training creates a steep learning curve and the potential for due process violations.

“There are many concerns here: that it is temporary, which puts them at great risk of deciding cases in a certain way; and they don’t have experience in immigration law, which is a very complex area to work in,” said Ingrid Eagly, a professor of immigration law at UCLA.

Immigration courts have a backlog of more than three million cases. Anam Petit, who served as an immigration judge in Virginia until September, said the administration’s emphasis on speedy completion of cases must be balanced with the constitutional right to a fair trial.

“There are not enough judges to hear those cases, and this administration [is] they are committed to firing many experienced and qualified judges who can hear those cases and can reduce that backlog,” he said.

Related bills introduced in the US Senate and House this month by Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Rep. Juan Vargas (D-San Diego) would ban the appointment of military attorneys as temporary immigration judges and impose a two-year limit on service.

“The Trump administration’s willingness to fire experienced immigration judges and hire inexperienced or temporary ‘deportation judges,’ especially in places like California, has had a profound effect on the state of our justice system,” Schiff said in a statement announcing the bill.

The bills have little chance in the Republican-controlled Congress but show how Democrats – especially in California – oppose the administration’s immigration court reforms.

Former Immigration Judge Tania Nemer, a dual citizen of Lebanon and the US, sued the Department of Justice and Atty. General Pam Bondi this month, with allegations that she was illegally fired in February because of her gender, race and politics. In 2023, Nemer ran for justice office in Ohio as a Democrat.

He said. Gen. Pam Bondi, seen here at the White House in October, dismissed complaints by a former immigration judge that she was fired without cause.

(Evan Vucci/Associated Press)

Bondi addressed the case at a Cabinet meeting.

“Recently, yesterday, I was sued by the immigration judge who fired us,” said Dec. 2. “One of the reasons you’re a woman. Last time I checked, I was a woman.”

Some former judges have challenged their removal by the federal Merit Systems Protection Board.

Johnson, of San Francisco, is one of those. He filed his appeal this month, saying he was not given a reason for the withdrawal.

“My goal is to get back to work,” he said. “My colleagues on the bench, our court was bustling. It was a great place to work despite all the pressure.”