The Trump administration has removed at least seven immigration judges in New York City, marking the latest shake-up inside the country’s already-strained immigration courts.
According to the National Association of Immigration Judges and a review of the Justice Department’s internal directory, the judges were dismissed on Monday. All of them worked at 26 Federal Plaza, a major hub for immigration hearings and also the site of frequent protests against the administration’s strict immigration policies.
This move is part of a much larger pattern. Since President Trump returned to office in January, over 100 immigration judges out of roughly 700 have been fired or pressured to leave, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Experts say these dismissals are reducing the number of experienced judges at a time when arrests and deportation efforts are rapidly increasing—creating an even bigger backlog of cases.
Unlike federal judges in traditional courts, immigration judges work under the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, meaning they can be removed by the President or the Attorney General. The Trump administration argues that this authority gives them the constitutional right to dismiss judges they consider “inferior officers.”
The Justice Department declined to comment on the personnel decisions.
This isn’t the first recent round of terminations. Last month, the administration dismissed five immigration judges in San Francisco, one in New York, and one in Boston. And on Monday, a former judge in Ohio—who was fired earlier in the year—filed a lawsuit claiming she was removed because of her gender, national origin, and political views.
One of the most notable judges dismissed in New York is Amiena Khan, an assistant chief immigration judge. During Trump’s first term, she publicly opposed the Justice Department’s attempts to dissolve the immigration judges’ union. She later became the union’s president in 2021 during the Biden administration.
By Tuesday morning, Khan’s name—and the names of six other female judges—had been removed from the New York immigration court’s online directory. Five of these judges were originally appointed under Democratic administrations, while two were appointed under Trump’s first-term Attorney General, William Barr.
With these departures, New York now has 25 permanent immigration judges left on staff.
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