U.S. has a quarter fewer immigration judges than it did a year ago. Here's why

NPR News · Feb 23, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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The front lobby of the Miami Immigration Court seen on Jan. 28, 2026 in Miami, Florida. Joe Raedle/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Joe Raedle/Getty Images Amiena Khan was supposed to have the day off that December. But, in a supervisory role at an immigration court, "you never really are on leave," she said. So Khan was working — mostly on performance evaluations for the 36 immigration judges and dozens of staff members she oversaw at the court in Manhattan's 26 Federal Plaza. At 11:29 a.m., while in the middle of a meeting, Khan received the email she had been dreading for months: she had been fired. As her phone began blowing up, she learned that six of the judges she supervised had been terminated as well. "As I tried to reassure them, I was trying to explain, 'But I've been terminated too,'" said Khan, who had been an assistant chief immigration judge at the court. "It was chilling and — in how the terminations were effectuated — it was disrespectful. It was utter disregard of dedicated public servants." While Khan's firing was upsetting, she said it wasn't altogether shocking. The Trump administration fired nearly 100 judges in 2025. The dismissals were part of a larger push by the Trump administration to reshape America's immigration courts. The number of judges in the nation's immigration courts shrunk by about a quarter in the last year due to firings and resignations — even when accounting for new hires. Twelve immigration courts have lost over half of their judges. Many courts are down to skeleton crews to handle thousands of cases; two courts have no judges at all. In total, the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EOIR, lost over 400 legal assistants, attorney advisers and legal administrative specialists, according to data obtained and verified by NPR. The continued drain of personnel and resources from the already strained immigration court system has contributed to depleted staff morale, mounting case backlogs — and a floundering due process system. Some former judges call this a shrinkage of America's immigration courts that sends a clear message from the Trump administration: to green-light mass deportations, and get rid of the judges they think stand in the way. "You are telling every other judge that is left that they better not be following the law or their conscience; that they need to apply the law as you are interpreting it," said Arwen Swink, a former immigration judge fired from a San Francisco court in December. "You lose a little piece of justice. You lose some fundamental fairness, and understandably, you undermine confidence in the proceedings." The Trump administration has defended its personnel decisions, saying judges under the Biden administration were too lenient with granting asylum or other statuses to those seeking to stay in the U.S. "After four years of the Biden Administration forcing Immigration Courts to implement a de facto amnesty for hundreds of thousands of aliens, this Department of Justice is restoring integrity to our immigration system by following the law, timely completing cases, and hiring the most talented legal professionals to join in our mission to protect national security and public safety," a DOJ spokesperson said in a statement to NPR in response to questions about the loss of personnel. Loading... Cuts nationwide, with some courts hit worse than others On Feb. 4, 2025 — the day before the first immigration judge firing under President Trump's second term — the corps of permanent immigration judges consisted of 726 people: 683 immigration judges and 43 assistant chief immigration judges. They were spread across 75 courts nationwide. As of Monday, there are 520 permanent immigration judges and 33 assistant chief immigration judges, even after accounting for recent new hires. Over the next several months, the Trump administration fired nearly 100 of these judges, according to an independent tally kept by NPR. Dozens more judges retired or resigned, citing discomfort surrounding new policies about how they were supposed to adjudicate, according to interviews with current and former EOIR staff. "I really wanted to retire from this job much, much later than I did," said Ana Partida, a judge who retired from the Otay Mesa court in San Diego in October. "I no longer felt that I had judicial independence to conduct my courtroom and to make decisions under the law as I interpreted it." In total, 202 judges who were working in early 2025 are no longer there. Attrition has trickled down. About 75% of the attorney advisers have left EOIR. Fifty-four percent of court supervisors are also gone – which means that those who remain are managing multiple courts at once. Loading... Five courts have more judges assigned to them than they did at the start of 2025. Separately, the Baton Rouge Immigration Court in Louisiana, created during the Biden administration, officially opened last year, but was staffed with existing judges who were previously assigned to other locations. Firings "sent waves all across the United States" For years, being an immigration judge was considered a stable job. "When I was onboarded, there were all kinds of jokes in the agency that if you were a judge and you wanted to get fired, they'd have to catch you with a bloody axe," said Swink, the former San Francisco judge, who had been at the agency since December 2016. "It was very, very, very rare for judges to be fired." The Trump administration began 2025 by wiping the slate clean by letting go of leadership at the highest levels of EOIR. Then it moved to terminating judges who were still within their two-year probationary period, a trial period for federal workers before they are "converted" to permanent employees. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents look over lists of names and their hearing times and locations inside the Federal Plaza courthouse before making arrests in June 2025 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Bryan R. Smith/AFP via Getty Images The first judge fired was Tania Nemer in the Cleveland Immigration Court. She was dismissed while in the middle of a hearing and escorted out of the building. (She has since sued over her termination, arguing it violated civil rights law and her First Amendment rights.) "Being walked off a bench like you're a criminal is just very shocking," Nemer said. "That shock sent waves all across the United States. Everyone heard that this judge from Cleveland got escorted out of the building." But by the end of the year, the administration moved beyond probationary workers, with tenured judges and DOJ employees being cut. Khan, the courthouse supervisor at New York's 26 Federal Plaza immigration court, pushed back on the idea that dismissed judges weren't meeting work standards, as the administration has argued. "The message and the mission of [EOIR] is to ensure fundamentally fair hearings and due process and efficiency. And that's what immigration judges strive to do," Khan said. "As a supervisor of the dismissed judges, each and every one of them was meeting their obligations." EOIR has previously said that any staff reductions have not affected productivity. But the system still has a nearly 4 million case backlog. Those who stay face push to be "deportation judges" Judges and staff who are left in the immigration courts describe the past year as traumatizing and demoralizing. They say the current justice system is fundamentally different from one a year ago. One visible change was to the work environment. From New York to Connecticut to San Francisco, people in otherwise bureaucratic roles like clerks, interpreters and judges were surrounded by the chaos of violent arrests by Immigration and Customs officers in the hallways of courtrooms and witnessed these agents clash with protestors outside, several told NPR. "There were a couple of times where we could hear respondents screaming when they were getting arrested. You have to pretend you're not hearing or seeing anything," said a court clerk at an immigration court who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals for their position. "Because you're not really supposed to show emotion in court, you're supposed to be neutral." Judges also feel pressure to decide cases in line with the administration's priorities. A public hiring campaign to beef up the immigration court system with "deportation judges" is in full swing, as the Trump administration seeks to make up for the judges who were fired or left. "Deliver justice to criminal illegal aliens. Become a deportation judge. Save your country," the social media ads read. Olivia Cassin saw an advertisement for deportation judges posted online by the Department of Homeland Security on Nov. 21, 2025 — the same day that she was fired from the immigration court at 290 Broadway Court in New York. Federal agents patrol the halls of immigration court at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in July 2025 in New York City. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images "We were like, that's a hoax, that can't be," Cassin said. "And then we looked at the website for the Department of Justice, and there was the same. It's a clear message that what you're there to do – is not to carefully examine each case for people due process. The main point seems to be expedited deportation and resolution of cases." Since launching the campaign in November, DOJ has hired 17 permanent judges, most who come from ICE and other DHS backgrounds, and 52 temporary judges. The temporary judges are military lawyers approved for temporary assignments by the Pentagon. New judges who don't comply with the administration's priorities may already be facing consequences. One JAG judge, Christopher Day, a U.S. Army Reserve lawyer, had granted asylum and relief from immediate deportation at a higher rate than his other JAG counterparts, ac