President Donald Trump has fired about 20 percent of the immigration judges working at New York City’s 26 Federal Plaza, the epicenter of migrant arrests in the city.
Eight judges out of 42 were fired on Monday, The New York Times reported. That brings the total to more than 100 immigration judges out of 700 that have been fired or pushed out this year nationwide, Reuters reported.
For months, 26 Federal Plaza has been the site of chaotic and even violent arrests as masked federal agents have grabbed people showing up for routine check-ins.
The judges’ firings seemed to design to extend that culture of fear and uncertainty to inside the courtroom, with the goal of pressuring judges to crack down on the immigrants who appear before them, sources told the Times.
“The court has been basically eviscerated,” former judge Olivia Cassin, who worked at a different New York courthouse, told the paper. “It feels like a Monday afternoon massacre.”
Cassin had worked as an immigration judge for more than a decade when she was fired in November.
The Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review houses the executive branch’s immigration court system, meaning immigration judges are civil servants employed by the Justice Department.
Of the fired judges, 36 have been replaced, according to the Times.
The Justice Department has not provided reasons for the firings or an explanation for the replacements, but the fired judges believe they were targeted because the administration considered them too lenient.
Last month, an NPR investigation found that most of the fired judges had defended immigrants at some point during their careers.
A review of 11 new judges found that they did not have immigration defense experience, Their backgrounds were in immigration enforcement, the military, and federal service, according to NPR.
Many of the firings have been so abrupt that judges were in the middle of hearings when they received notice that they had been fired and needed to leave the building, several sources told NPR.
On Monday, former immigration judge Tania Nemer, who was fired in February, filed a lawsuit alleging that she was illegally fired in violation of the Constitution and Title VII’s prohibition of discrimination in the federal workforce.
The suit alleges that Nemer was fired because she’s a woman and a dual citizen of the U.S. and Lebanon who previously ran for office as a Democrat.
The head of the DOJ’s equal employment opportunity office had said in December that Title VII did not protect immigration judges from at-will removal by Trump.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the DOJ for comment.
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