- More than a dozen immigration judges reported to The New York Times feeling pressured by the Trump administration to increase deportations and faced threats of disciplinary action or job loss if they didn’t comply.
- Over 100 immigration judges were fired or forced out during the Trump administration and subsequently replaced by Department of Homeland Security prosecutors and military lawyers.
- Judges are used as “puppets for the administration with a singular goal of deporting as many people as possible as quickly as possible,” according to Shuting Chen, an immigration judge who was fired in November.
- This shift led to a significant drop in asylum grant rates, with new judges approving only about 6% of cases, compared to 46% by judges who were later removed.
- A top federal prosecutor in Manhattan admitted that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had falsely claimed officers could arrest individuals inside immigration courts, leading to immigrants being arrested in courthouse hallways. U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton repeatedly expressed “regret” in a letter to a federal judge, saying that his office mistakenly defended an ICE memo that “does not and has never applied” to immigration court arrests.
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