The Trump administration is effectively declaring that the nation’s roughly 700 immigration judges can no longer count on civil service rules that safeguard their independence by protecting them from arbitrary removal, according to a Department of Justice memo that was sent to the judges. The memo from DOJ—which oversees the immigration courts—was flagged for me by the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, or IFPTE, the judges’ union, which believes this will make it far easier to fire judges without cause.
The judges and their representatives fear that this is designed to pave the way for the removal of judges who don’t consistently rule against migrants in deportation and asylum cases—and thus frustrate Trump and his hard-line immigration advisers. Replacing them with judges who will more reliably rule against migrants could theoretically speed up the pace of deportations.
“What they want to do is fire immigration judges that don’t issue rulings to their liking,” said Matthew Biggs, the president of IFPTE, “and replace them with judges that will simply rubber-stamp what President Trump wants.”
This represents a serious escalation of Trump’s assault on the immigration system. Last month, DOJ fired 20 immigration judges with no public rationale; those were largely probationary officials. Then, last week, DOJ let it be known that it will no longer observe restrictions that constrain the removal of administrative law judges, a category that decides federal government agency cases and doesn’t include most immigration judges.
But now, DOJ is signaling that it will disregard restrictions on removal for the broad category of immigration judges as well, according to the DOJ memo, which was addressed to all employees of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EOIR, the agency within the DOJ that oversees the immigration courts. The memo acknowledges that under current law, these judges benefit from “multiple layers of for-cause removal restrictions,” meaning they can’t be fired at will. But it adds that EOIR “may decline to recognize those restrictions if they are determined to be unconstitutional.”
Translated into plain English, this means that if restrictions on removing immigration judges are “determined” by the DOJ to be unconstitutional, they will no longer apply, immigration lawyers say. It’s only a matter of time until this “determination” is made.
Not really. You are taking two different things. Political actions are not a black and white thing. I gave an example on how threatening one agency leader for political gain is not comparable to a blanket order to achieve something apolitical. That is what is not black and white in the sense you can’t compare those things even though on some level it is doing the same thing. Pressuring leadership. Even my voting is not black and white despite the term being used for something else than I had been using it with. When it comes to politicians having to work in a way that is appropriate vs not appropriate and that is a decision I make as I decide how to vote at each election. I vote super democrat now but did not in the past and may not in the future. One thing that would get me to vote less democrat would be the republicans to implode or lose so much they become inconsequential. The exact reverse has happened though so the most likely thing is I will be a consistent democratic voter. If democratic president came in and did everything that had the reverse goals of trump but used his congress/judicial ignoring methods. And republican ones for some reason started working for theoretical conservative principles (not low taxes and deregulation but free market, no having debt, rainy day funds, general fiscal responsibility) except they worked within a system that they strove to make as democratic as possible. I would vote republican.