Latest news with #ExecutiveOfficeofImmigrationReview
Boston Globe
6 days ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Trump administration fires 17 immigration court judges across 10 states, union says
Advertisement Firings come with courts at the center of administration efforts The firings come as the courts have been increasingly at the center of the Trump administration's hardline immigration enforcement efforts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arresting immigrants as they appear at court for proceedings. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up A spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Immigration Review, which is the part of the Justice Department that oversees the courts, said in an email that the office would not comment on the firings. The large-scale arrests began in May and have unleashed fear among asylum-seekers and immigrants appearing in court. In what has become a familiar scene, a judge will grant a government lawyer's request to dismiss deportation proceedings against an immigrant. Meanwhile, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are waiting in the hallway to arrest the person and put them on a fast track to deportation as soon as he or she leaves the courtroom. Advertisement Immigration court judges are also dealing with a massive backlog of roughly 3.5 million cases that ballooned in recent years. Cases can take years to weave their way to a final determination, with judges and lawyers frequently scheduling final hearings on the merits of a case over a year out. Unlike criminal courts, immigrants don't have the right to a lawyer, and if they can't afford one they represent themselves — often using an interpreter to make their case. Courts are getting a cash infusion Under recently passed legislation that will use $170 billion to supercharge immigration enforcement, the courts are set to get an infusion of $3.3 billion. That will go toward raising the number of judges to 800 and hiring more staff to support them. But the union said that since the Trump administration took office over 103 judges have either been fired or voluntarily left after taking what was dubbed the 'Fork in the Road' offers at the beginning of the administration. The union said that rather than speeding up the immigration court process, the Justice Department's firings would actually make the backlogs worse. The union said that it can take as long as a year to recruit, hire and train new immigration court judges. There are currently about 600 judges, according to the union figures. Immigration courts fall under the Justice Department.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's Mass Firings Throw Huge Wrench in His Mass Deportations
Donald Trump's efforts to shrink the federal workforce are getting in the way of his own agenda. More than 100 employees at the Executive Office of Immigration Review have either been terminated or opted into the government's deferred resignation program, creating a new roadblock in the Trump administration's goal to execute massive deportations, according to ABC News. For scale, the U.S. employs roughly 735 immigration judges in the country's 71 immigration courts, charged with handling a backlog of 3.7 million cases—and the number increases every day. The Trump administration's efforts to cull extraneous workers has led to the departure of 43 immigration judges, as well as 85 essential administrative staff. Matt Biggs, the president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, told ABC News that the Trump administration's efforts to dismiss the immigration judges his union represents was 'highly hypocritical.' 'How do you deport people without immigration judges?' Biggs said. 'It's highly hypocritical. It runs contrary to what he campaigned on. He's making it more difficult to deport people from this country. It makes no sense at all.' Cutting roughly six percent of the U.S. stock of judges certainly won't prevent the Trump administration's efforts to enact massive deportations; it will likely just make them even more slow and painful for those subjected to detainment by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which on Thursday officially revived the policy of detaining migrant families with children. The practice had been banned under President Joe Biden. It's also possible that some judges are being dismissed for political reasons. Kerry Doyle, a longtime immigration attorney, was one of 13 in a class of newly hired immigration judges who was dismissed last month. She had previously been flagged on the American Accountability Foundation's 'DHS Bureaucrat Watchlist.' The website described Doyle as an 'immigration activist lawyer' with a 'known history as a critic of DHS' and a 'lifelong commitment to open borders and mass migration,' according to Mother Jones. Now, she's out of a job. In a post on LinkedIn, Doyle wrote that her dismissal was 'political.' 'The reality is that you've got a really broken system, and firing judges is not the way to fix it,' Doyle told ABC News.
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Fired Biden immigration judge lashes out at Trump: 'It was political'
An immigration judge appointed by former President Joe Biden is lashing out after being fired by President Donald Trump. "It was political," Judge Kerry Doyle said, according to a report from WGBH. Doyle, who worked in Massachusetts, was one of more than 20 immigration judges fired in recent days without explanation, with Doyle saying she received an email from the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) last week that read the agency had "determined that retaining" her was "not in the best interest of the agency." Administrative judges like Doyle do not have the same protection from firing as federal judges, who are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate to fill lifetime terms. Trump Administration Fires More Than A Dozen Immigration Judges Nevertheless, Doyle told WGBH in an interview that Trump's decision will undermine faith in the nation's immigration system. Read On The Fox News App "If you start making it political, it really does blow the system up and blow up people's faith in the system," said Doyle, who previously helped lead a court challenge against Trump's 2017 travel ban for people from multiple Muslim-majority countries. "None of us were there to drive a political agenda. We were there to do our jobs." Doyle noted that many judges in the Boston area have served on the immigration court across multiple administrations, arguing that those appointed to fill the roles don't act in a partisan manner. "It would be problematic for it to be political because what civil servants do is they serve the public — we swear an oath to the Constitution," she said. But the firings have raised concerns that the already large backlog of immigration cases will now take even longer to clear, with International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers President Matthew Biggs pointing out that a single judge can rule on 500 to 700 cases per year. Us Immigration Backlog Reaches New Record Of 3 Million Pending Cases: Report "Look up the definition of 'hypocrisy.' It's 'when someone says one thing but does another.' The firing of immigration judges when we need more judges to enforce our immigration laws by this administration is a perfect example of hypocrisy," Briggs, whose organization represents the nation's roughly 700 immigration judges, told WGBH. Massachusetts alone has a backlog of about 160,000 cases, the report notes. Doyle was readying to take over the cases of a colleague who had just left the court, meaning some of those cases could now be on an extended timeline. "Those cases will have to be handed out to all the other judges. So it's going to be even more work for them," she said. "They need every judge, every person available. And so it will just make the court more congested. Folks are working very hard already." The report notes that the recent firings are not the first time a new administration has fired judges, pointing to a 2021 example in which Judge Marna Rusher, who was hired by Trump, was fired shortly after Biden took office. Click To Get The Fox News App But Doyle had less of an issue with that decision, reasoning Biden's decision was less likely to be "politically motivated." "Maybe it's just that each president wants to have his imprimatur and people who will follow his agenda. I don't know," Doyle said. "I don't think that I would call that politically motivated in as much as they think they have a better idea for America and fairly treating people that come across the border."Original article source: Fired Biden immigration judge lashes out at Trump: 'It was political'
Fox News
19-02-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Fired Biden immigration judge lashes out at Trump: ‘It was political'
An immigration judge appointed by former President Joe Biden is lashing out after being fired by President Donald Trump. "It was political," Judge Kerry Doyle said, according to a report from WGBH. Doyle, who worked in Massachusetts, was one of over 20 immigration judges that were fired in recent days without explanation, with Doyle saying he received an email from the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) last week that read the agency had "determined that retaining" her was "not in the best interest of the agency." Administrative judges like Doyle do not have the same protection from firing as federal judges, who are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate to fill lifetime terms. Nevertheless, Doyle told WGBH in an interview that Trump's decision will undermine faith in the nation's immigration system. "If you start making it political, it really does blow the system up and blow up people's faith in the system," Doyle, who previously helped lead a court challenge against Trump's 2017 travel ban for people from multiple Muslim-majority countries, said. "None of us were there to drive a political agenda. We were there to do our jobs." Doyle noted that many judges in the Boston area have served on the immigration court across multiple administrations, arguing that those appointed to fill the roles don't act in a partisan manner. "It would be problematic for it to be political because what civil servants do is they serve the public — we swear an oath to the Constitution," she said. But the firings have raised concerns that the already large backlog of immigration cases will now take even longer to clear, with International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers President Matthew Biggs pointing out that a single judge can rule on 500 to 700 cases per year. "Look up the definition of 'hypocrisy.' It's 'when someone says one thing but does another.' The firing of immigration judges when we need more judges to enforce our immigration laws by this administration is a perfect example of hypocrisy," Briggs, whose organization represents the nation's roughly 700 immigration judges, told WGBH. Massachusetts alone has a backlog of about 160,000 cases, the report notes. Doyle was readying to take over the cases of a colleague who had just left the court, meaning some of those cases could now be on an extended timeline. "Those cases will have to be handed out to all the other judges. So it's going to be even more work for them," she said. "They need every judge, every person available. And so it will just make the court more congested. Folks are working very hard already." The report notes that the recent firings are not the first time a new administration has fired judges, pointing to a 2021 example in which judge Marna Rusher, a judge hired by Trump, was fired shortly after Biden took office. But Doyle had less of an issue with that decision, reasoning Biden's decision was less likely to be "politically motivated." "Maybe it's just that each president wants to have his imprimatur and people who will follow his agenda. I don't know," Doyle said. "I don't think that I would call that politically motivated in as much as they think they have a better idea for America and fairly treating people that come across the border."
