The Trump administration put coal in the Christmas stockings of eight immigration judges who found themselves on the naughty list this year, firing eight of them on Monday according to information from an official with the National Association of Immigration Judges. The judges who were given their walking papers worked at 26 Federal Plaza in New York City.
The firings followed hot on the heels of an earlier round of job cuts in the city’s immigration courts and are part of President Donald Trump’s plan to rid the justice system of those who have turned their backs on the law and refuse to back the president’s plan to deport illegal immigrants.
A former judge who was booted by the Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against them claiming her termination was unlawful discrimination. Tania Nemer, a former immigration judge from Ohio, is alleging that she was fired because of her gender and a dual citizenship she shares with Lebanon. Nemer also ran for a local office as a Democrat and believes this too played a role in her firing.
Nemer and the eight judges from New York are part of over 100 immigration judge firings or resignations that have happened all across the United States. The Department of Homeland Security is currently working to fill these openings with “deportation judges” to support President Trump’s mission to deport those who crossed the border without legal permission.
According to ABC News, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin published a post on X last week advertising the open jobs as potential full-time remote work with a healthy salary ranging from $159,951 a year to $207,500 annually. As you can probably imagine, none of this is sitting too well with immigration advocates who have slammed the administration for firing immigration judges who they say have experience in immigration law.
Currently, there is a backlog of over 3.7 million immigration cases that need to be heard. The War Department is seeking to help alleviate the issue, stating in September they planned to send 600 military attorneys to serve as immigration judges. As of this writing, there have only been 25 that have gone through the required training and have started hearing cases.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act created over 800 federal immigration judiciary jobs, but only 11 permanent new judges have filled those vacancies. The Justice Department has responded to Judge Nemer’s lawsuit by responding to her previous Equal Employment Opportunity complaint that the administration has the legal right to boot employees and the judge’s firing is part of the “lawful exercise” of that authority.
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“The EEO office issued a final agency decision that dismissed Ms. Nemer’s complaint and asserted that Title VII does not constrain discriminatory dismissal against immigration judges because the statute purportedly conflicts with the Article II removal power,” Nemer’s complaint read. “That is simply not true. Nothing in the Constitution gives the executive branch the right to discriminate.” Nemer’s legal team referred to the DOJ’s having the power to fire federal employees without a reason as a “breathtaking assault on a landmark federal statute.”