The US supreme court has ordered the [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) to temporarily halt the deportation of Venezuelan men in immigration custody, after their lawyers said they were at imminent risk of removal without the judicial review previously mandated by the justices. “The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court,” the justices said early on Saturday. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, two of the court’s leading conservatives, dissented. The order is the latest example of how the country’s courts are challenging the Trump administration’s overhaul of the immigration system, which has been characterized by a number of deportations that have either been wrongful or carried out without due process. Before the late-night supreme court ruling, lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argued in an [emergency Friday court filing](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A1007/356063/20250418172902261_2025.04.18%20AARP%20Application.pdf) that dozens of Venezuelan men held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Bluebonnet detention center in Texas had been given notices indicating they were classified as members of the Tren de Aragua gang. They said the men would be deported under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) and were told “that the removals are imminent and will happen tonight or tomorrow”. The ACLU said immigration authorities were accusing other Venezuelan men held there of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang, which would make them subject to deportation. The ACLU said a number of the men in Texas had already been loaded onto a bus, and it urged the court to rule before they could be deported. The ACLU has already sued to block deportations under the AEA of two Venezuelans held in the Texas detention center and is asking a judge to issue an order barring removal of any immigrants in the region under the law. The supreme court has allowed some deportations under the AEA, but has previously ruled they could proceed only if those about to be removed had a chance to argue their case in court and were given “a reasonable time” to contest their pending removals. Federal judges in Colorado, New York and southern Texas have also issued orders barring the removal of detainees under the AEA until the administration provides a process for them to make claims in court. But there’s been no such order issued in the area of Texas that covers Bluebonnet, which is located 24 miles (39km) north of the city of Abilene in the far northern end of the state. District judge James Wesley Hendrix this week declined to bar the administration from removing the two men identified in the ACLU lawsuit because immigration officials filed sworn declarations that they would not be immediately deported. But the ACLU’s Friday filing includes sworn declarations from three separate immigration lawyers who said their clients in Bluebonnet were given paperwork indicating they were members of Tren de Aragua and could be deported by Saturday. In one case, immigration lawyer Karene Brown said her client, identified by initials and who only spoke Spanish, was told to sign papers in English. “Ice informed FGM that these papers were coming from the president, and that he will be deported even if he did not sign it,” Brown wrote. The ACLU asked Hendrix to issue a temporary order halting any such deportations. Later on Friday, with no response from Hendrix, the ACLU asked district judge James Boasberg in Washington to issue a similar emergency order, saying they had information that detainees were being loaded onto buses. In their court filing, lawyers say clients received [a document](https://x.com/camiloreports/status/1913296258619351161) on Friday from immigration officials, titled “Notice and Warrant of Apprehension and Removal Under the Alien Enemies Act”. It read: “You have been determined to be … a member of Tren de Aragua. … “You have been determined to be an alien enemy subject to apprehension, restraint and removal from the United States … This is not a removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act.” Before the supreme court decision, Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat, [denounced](https://x.com/RepJayapal/status/1913320953800433935) the reported plan. “We cannot stand by,” Jayapal wrote on social media, as the Trump administration “continues to disappear people”. Hours before the supreme court ruling was announced, an appeals court in Washington DC temporarily halted Boasberg’s contempt proceedings against the Trump administration over its deportation flights to El Salvador last month. The court said the order was intended to provide “sufficient opportunity” for the court to consider the government’s appeal and “should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion”.

 President Trump is chipping away at the right to due process within the [immigration court system](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/07/nx-s1-5308051/deportation-timeline-cost), immigration lawyers and former judges say, in an effort to fast-track deportations. Over the course of his first few months in office, the administration has removed some [protections from deportation](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/08/g-s1-58984/cbp-one-app-migrants-dhs-border), cancelled [grants that provided legal representation](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/g-s1-60288/senate-criticism-unaccompanied-children) to children, fired dozens of the [judges responsible for hearing cases](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/22/nx-s1-5372681/trump-immigration-judges-fired), and [moved individuals to far-flung locations](https://www.npr.org/2025/02/04/nx-s1-5286579/donald-trump-migrants-guantanamo-legal-challenges-immigration) — [including to prisons out of U.S](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/01/nx-s1-5347427/maryland-el-salvador-error). jurisdiction. The onslaught of explicit policy changes and [messaging](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/14/nx-s1-5323918/self-deportation-immigration-trump) show a rapid effort to make it easier to remove certain migrants from the country. "I hope we get cooperation from the courts, because we have thousands of people that are ready to go out and you can't have a trial for all of these people," Trump told reporters in the [Oval Office](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c6pm6393C4) last week. Experts argue the administration's actions are weakening the limited due process immigrants in the U.S. are entitled to, and could lead to similar erosion for lawful permanent residents and U.S. citizens. "This is a slippery slope towards sending residents of the country … to a place where the U.S. courts have no reach," said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute. "That's the heart of the matter." At its core, these due process rights center on a key factor: having access to an impartial judge. Those placed in immigration proceedings in immigration courts within the Department of Justice don't have the right to a lawyer — and [most people don't have one to argue their case](https://tracreports.org/tracker/dynadata/2024_08/IF12158.pdf), which lowers their chances of success. But they may have a right to their day in court. Those courts are already an imperfect system. The success of asylum claims varies widely among each individual immigration judge, according to the [Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse](https://tracreports.org/reports/752/), and people face [various barriers to access legal services](https://tracreports.org/reports/757/). But any sliver of due process is significant because it's an opportunity to prevent erroneous removals, give people a chance to argue why they should stay, or sign off on the government's removal orders. Most recently, the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia raised the specter of due process being ignored, after the Trump administration admitted to sending him to a mega prison in [El Salvador by mistake](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/nx-s1-5366017). ### White House questions due process for immigrants Trump and his advisers have taken to social media to cast doubt on the ability to provide due process for the thousands of people they are aiming to arrest and remove. "I'm doing what I was elected to do, remove criminals from our Country, but the Courts don't seem to want me to do that," Trump [wrote on social media](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114377993807616549). "We cannot give everyone a trial, because to do so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years." Proceedings in administrative court have been known to take months and even years, with courts facing a backlog of [millions](https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1344791/dl?inline) of cases. Vice President [JD Vance went as far as to call it a](https://x.com/JDVance/status/1912320489261027374) "fake legal process" that is the "ratification of Biden's illegal migrant invasion." "The judicial process is for Americans. Immediate deportation is for illegal aliens," echoed [deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller](https://x.com/stephenm/status/1911251687647367318?s=42). And the right-leaning Heritage Foundation, [on social media](https://x.com/Heritage/status/1912617453948911625), sought to paint due process as a partisan issue: "When the Left says 'due process,' they mean, 'no deportations.'" To justify due process, legal experts broadly point to the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states that no person "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," and the Fourteenth Amendment, which applies to states. Democrats and immigration advocates say that if due process is scrapped at any level, it hurts everyone in the system — including U.S. citizens. "What the administration is relying on is that unauthorized immigrants are not popular in the country, and therefore people say, 'They're not entitled to the same due process as U.S. citizens," Chishti said. "That may be politically a good slogan. Unfortunately, the Constitution does not make any distinction between citizens and noncitizens for the application of the protections of due process and judicial review," he said. Still, due process is considered a "spectrum of rights," with different people being allotted different levels of protection, according to multiple lawyers contacted for this article. The fewest rights are offered to more recent arrivals to the U.S. without legal status. Lawful permanent residents and naturalized citizens traditionally have the most protections. "It's the position of the Trump administration that they can't do much process at all," said Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge now at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors lower levels of U.S. immigration. "At the end of the day, the question is going to be for the courts whether and what process is due, and how that process should be afforded," he said.  The immigration court system is unique. The judges and courtrooms are within the Department of Justice, under the executive branch as opposed to the judiciary. The Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EOIR, [was created in 1983](https://www.justice.gov/eoir/about-office#:~:text=The%20Executive%20Office%20for%20Immigration%20Review%20(EOIR)%20was%20created%20on,former%20Immigration%20and%20Naturalization%20Service%20() explicitly to pull immigration judges out of what was formerly known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service. "There was a lot of criticism that when the government was bringing charges to try to remove people, that the people who were making those decisions were just too closely intertwined with the enforcement agency," said Ashley Tabaddor, a former immigration judge and former president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. People who are subject to removal proceedings have a right to go through the immigration court process. The immigration court system offers a neutral setting for people to make their case, including for protection from prosecution, said Tabaddor, now an immigration law consultant. "What is at stake is oftentimes a life and death situation," she said. ### Court backlogs and less legal aid Previously, nonprofits relied on grants and other federal funds to offer support to those least likely to be able to make their own case in immigration courts, including children. That money is drying up, and pro bono work from big law firms is also at risk after Trump [targeted some law firms](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/13/g-s1-59497/trump-law-firms-pro-bono) for work on causes unpopular with him. The South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project has over 700 cases representing children; cuts in their funding means they cannot take on more. "We're in this situation of trying to go through how we can meet our ethical duties as attorneys and represent people, but also not having the ability to pay for those services," said Aimee Korolev, the deputy director. In addition to cutting off grants that facilitate legal aid, the administration has directed the [Justice and Homeland Security departments](https://www.aila.org/library/presidential-memo-on-preventing-abuses-of-the-legal-system-and-the-federal-court) to take disciplinary action against immigration attorneys and law firms accused of committing fraud and "mass illegal immigration." "What we've seen is just this unprecedented attack on immigrants and access to counsel, including attacks on immigration lawyers, the pro bono attorneys, and on immigrants themselves," said Mary Meg McCarthy, executive director of the National Immigrant Justice Center. Her group is one of those that's lost federal funding to provide legal aid to unaccompanied minors. She said the group's recent wins point to the importance of due process. Its clients include U.S. citizens or others with legal status who were questioned or wrongly arrested or detained, as well as lawful permanent residents who have prior convictions, such as [Robert Panton](https://immigrantjustice.org/press-releases/harlem-grandfather-community-leader-robert-panton-detained-ice-check-new-york-city), 59, who is facing removal proceedings for a single nonviolent drug offense. The Department of Homeland Security says it abides by the Constitution but that it has the right to revoke visas. "We have said time and time again that if you are in this country on a visa or green card and have committed a crime then you may be subject to visa revocation," Tricia McLaughlin, the department's assistant secretary for public affairs, said in an email to NPR. "We are absolutely following due process under the US Constitution." However, the department disputed that U.S. citizens were getting arrested. "DHS enforcement operations are highly targeted and are not resulting in the arrest of U.S. citizens. We do our due diligence," a senior DHS official said. "If and when we do encounter individuals subject to arrest, our law enforcement are trained to ask a series of well-determined questions to determine status and removability." Issues with U.S. citizens getting accidentally swept up in immigration arrests stretch back several administrations. A [2021](https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-487) Government Accountability Office report found that in the five years prior, potential citizens did have encounters with immigration officers that could lead to their arrest and even deportation. ### Bypassing the process Immigration lawyers say the administration is also trying to skip the often lengthy immigration court process as much as possible. The Trump administration has sought to boost deportations of those eligible for ["expedited removal](https://azmirror.com/2025/01/25/no-court-no-hearing-trump-revives-fast-track-deportations-expands-reach-nationwide/)," which allows the government to immediately remove someone without a court hearing. Trump also invoked the [Alien Enemies Act of 1798](https://www.npr.org/2025/03/17/1239050330/podcast-alien-enemies-act), which also allows the administration to speed up deportations of certain gang members with more limited due process. Several lawsuits are [challenging](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/19/nx-s1-5369554/trump-administration-and-the-courts-continue-to-clash-over-immigration) the president's proclamation, and the Supreme Court [temporarily blocked deportations](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/18/nx-s1-5369579/supreme-court-block-deportations-venezuelans) under the act.  Using a combination of laws allowing for quick removal, the administration sent more than 200 men to a mega prison in El Salvador. In court filings, attorneys for some of the men allege they scrambled to find clients who had [been removed](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69741724/44/6/jgg-v-trump/) while in the [midst of their immigration court processes](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69741724/44/8/jgg-v-trump/). Trump has also moved to lay off and encourage the resignations of hundreds of court staff, including the judges who are supposed to approve deportations. This included judges who sit on the Board of Immigration Appeals, which hears appeals from immigration judges. "We are already hearing that cases are piling up in the queue because there aren't enough board members to review those appeal cases," said Greg Chen, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Those cases include recent arrests and detentions of people on student visas or without criminal records. "The dramatic changes that the administration has made in just less than three months now are overwhelming the overall legal system structure, be it private attorneys or nonprofits," Chen said. "There's just an overwhelming amount, like a fire hydrant of demand for assistance." ### Encouragement to self-deport And there's some evidence the Department of Homeland Security is more actively trying to encourage people to skip going to court. Across different court waiting rooms in Texas and Chicago, the Homeland Security Department has put up signs that read: "Message to illegal aliens: a warning to self-deport." Photos of signs were shared with NPR on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation from the government against attorneys or their clients. In Spanish and English, the signs warn of consequences if people do not "self-deport," including the risk of hefty fines. DHS, in a statement to NPR, didn't deny putting these signs up in immigration court waiting rooms. "President Trump and Secretary Noem have a clear message to illegal aliens: leave now," McLaughlin said in response to questions about the signs. She said people should [use the CBP Home App](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/08/g-s1-58984/cbp-one-app-migrants-dhs-border) to self-deport and show they're following the law. Tabaddor, the former immigration judge, said leaving people without legal counsel, or chipping away at the process, means more mistakes are possible. "At our fundamental level, we have to recognize that errors are made. We're all human," Tabaddor said, reflecting on her 30 years in federal immigration work. "You have to have a system in place for those people to be given notice and an opportunity to respond. Otherwise, it's absolute lawlessness."

 A federal appeals court has paused a judge's order to bring a Turkish Tufts University student from a Louisiana immigration detention center back to New England this week so it can consider an emergency motion filed by the government. The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New York, ruled Monday that a three-judge panel would hear arguments on May 6 in the case of Rumeysa Ozturk. She's been detained for five weeks as of Tuesday. A district court [judge in Vermont had earlier ordered](https://apnews.com/article/rumeysa-ozturk-deportation-tufts-massachusetts-student-vermont-45dbbe1fc11bbb3ae5e5b119496fc23c) that the 30-year-old doctoral student be brought to the state by Thursday for hearings to determine whether she was illegally detained. Ozturk's lawyers say her detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process. The U.S. Justice Department, which is appealing that ruling, said that an immigration court in Louisiana has jurisdiction over her case. Congress limited federal-court jurisdiction over immigration matters, government lawyers wrote. Yet the Vermont judge's order "defies those limits at every turn in a way that irreparably harms the government." Ozturk's lawyers opposed the emergency motion. "In practice, that temporary pause could last many months," they said in a news release. Immigration officials surrounded Ozturk [as she walked along a street](https://apnews.com/video/watch-the-moment-officials-detain-turkish-student-rumeysa-ozturk-6d24235307a546fdb495813f890d8c5b) in a Boston suburb March 25 and drove her to New Hampshire and Vermont before putting her on a plane to a detention center in Basile, Louisiana. Ozturk was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper, The Tufts Daily, last year criticizing the university's response to student activists demanding that Tufts "acknowledge the Palestinian genocide," disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in March, without providing evidence, that investigations found that Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.

Ana Faguy BBC News, Washington DC The US Supreme Court has said it will allow the Trump administration to terminate deportation protections for some 350,000 Venezuelans in the US. The ruling lifts a hold that was placed by a California judge that kept Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in place for Venezuelans whose status' would have expired last month. Temporary Protected Status allows people to live and work in the US legally if their home countries are deemed unsafe due to things like countries experiencing wars, natural disasters or other "extraordinary and temporary" conditions. The ruling marks a win for US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly tried to use the Supreme Court to enact immigration policy decisions. The Trump administration wanted to end protections and work permits for migrants with TPS in April 2025, more than a year before they were originally supposed to end in October 2026. Lawyers representing the US government argued the California federal court, the US District Court for the Northern District of California, had undermined "the Executive Branch's inherent powers as to immigration and foreign affairs," when it stopped the administration from ending protections and work permits in April. Ahilan Arulanantham, who represents TPS holders in the case, told the BBC he believes this to be "the largest single action stripping any group of non-citizens of immigration status in modern US history". "That the Supreme Court authorized this action in a two-paragraph order with no reasoning is truly shocking," Mr Arulanantham said. "The humanitarian and economic impact of the Court's decision will be felt immediately, and will reverberate for generations." Because it was an emergency appeal, justices on the Supreme Court did not provide a reasoning for the ruling. The court's order only noted one judge's dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. In August, the Trump administration is also expected to revoke TPS protections for tens of thousands of Haitians. The ruling on Monday by the Supreme Court marks the latest in a series of decisions on immigration policies from the high court that the Trump administration has left them to rule on. * [What is the 1798 law that Trump used to deport migrants?](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy871w21d3vo) Last week, the administration asked the Supreme Court to end humanitarian parole for hundreds of thousands of Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuela immigrants. Along with some of their successes, the Trump administration was dealt a blow on Friday when the high court blocked Trump from using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants in north Texas. Trump had wanted to use the centuries-old law to swiftly deport thousands from the US, but Supreme Court judges questioned if the president's action was legal.

Federal authorities have arrested people at [US immigration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/usimmigration) courts from New York to Arizona to Washington state in what appears to be a coordinated operation, as the [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration) ramps up the president’s mass deportation campaign. On Tuesday, agents who identified themselves only as federal officers arrested multiple people at an immigration court in [Phoenix](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/phoenix), taking people into custody outside the facility, according to immigrant advocates. In Miami on Wednesday, Juan Serrano, a 28-year-old who immigrated from Colombia, went to court for a quick check-in where a judge soon told him he was free to go. When he left the courtroom, federal agents waiting outside cuffed him and placed him in a van with several other immigrants detained that day. Journalists, advocates and attorneys reported seeing Ice agents poised to make arrests this week at immigration courthouses in [Los Angeles](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/los-angeles), Phoenix, New York, Seattle, Chicago and Texas. Arrests near or in the immigration courts, which are part of the US Department of Justice, are typically rare – in part due to concerns that the fear of being detained by Ice officers could discourage people from appearing. “It’s bad policy,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, president of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef). “By putting immigration officers in the courtrooms, they’re discouraging people from following the processes, punishing people for following the rules.” [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/22/ice-arrests-immigration-courts#img-2) Law enforcement officers take people into custody at an immigration court in Phoenix. Photograph: Caitlin O’Hara/Reuters Toczylowski noted several Ice officers both inside and outside an immigration courtroom in Los Angles this week, but said she did not see any arrests made there. She said that immigrants without lawyers were especially vulnerable, as they may not understand the exact information and context they need to provide in order to advance their case for asylum or other pathways to permanent residency in the US. ImmDef and other legal groups are sending attorneys to courtrooms they believe may be targeted by Ice officials, to try to provide basic legal education and aid to people appearing at required appointments. The presence of agents is stirring panic, she said. “People are being detained and handcuffed in the hallway,” she said. “Can you imagine what you would be thinking, if you’re waiting there with your family and children, about to see a judge? It’s terrifying.” The agents’ targeting of immigrants at court comes as the [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration) faces multiple lawsuits and the president attempts to enact the large-scale deportations he promised during his campaign. “All this is to accelerate detentions and expedite removals,” said Wilfredo Allen, an immigration attorney with decades of experience representing immigrants at the Miami immigration court. [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/22/ice-arrests-immigration-courts#img-3) Protesters outside an immigration court in Phoenix on Wednesday. Photograph: Caitlin O’Hara/Reuters The Trump administration has revived a 2019 policy that allows for “expedited removals” – fast-tracked deportation proceedings for people who have been in the US for less than two years. Immigrants who cannot prove that they have been in the US for longer than two years are subject to having their cases dismissed and being immediately expelled from the country. Under the Biden administration, expedited removals were limited to people apprehended within 100 miles (160km) of the US border, and who had been in the US for less than two weeks. In Phoenix, immigrant advocates gathered outside immigration court to protest the presence of Ice agents. “We witnessed parents and children being detained and abducted into unmarked vans immediately after attending their scheduled immigration proceedings,” said Monica Sandschafer, the Arizona state director for the advocacy group Mi Familia Vota. “We demand an immediate stop to these hateful tactics.” Three [US immigration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/usimmigration) officials told the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity that government attorneys were given the order to start dismissing cases when they showed up for work on Monday, and were aware that federal agents would then be able to arrest those individuals when they left the courtroom. In the case of Serrano in Miami, the request for dismissal was delivered by a government attorney who spoke without identifying herself on the record, the Associated Press reported. She refused to provide her name to the AP and quickly exited the courtroom. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement this week that it was detaining people who are subject to fast-track deportation authority. Advocates and lawyers are advising immigrants with upcoming hearings or court appearances to bring a trusted family member or friend who is a US citizen and ideally, a lawyer, to their appointments. _The Associated Press contributed_

 Matthew O'Brien started his tenure as a judge in a Virginia [immigration court](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/29/g-s1-63187/trump-courts-immigration-judges-due-process) at the end of the first Trump administration. He was dismissed at the end of his two-year probationary period under the Biden administration. His dismissal — and that of several other judges whom President Trump brought in in his first term in office — sparked immediate GOP outrage and claims of political interference. The Trump administration has now brought O'Brien back — and with a promotion to an assistant chief immigration judge. The move has not been publicly announced. But it can be seen on the [website](https://www.justice.gov/eoir/office-of-the-chief-immigration-judge#acij) of the Department of Justice, which oversees the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) that encompasses the immigration court system. O'Brien has a history of public views that represent hardline stances on immigration. As a judge, he also had a record of denying asylum to the vast majority of people appearing before his court. His rehiring raises questions about the neutrality of immigration judges, who are supposed to be impartial and whose decisions determine if someone can stay or must leave the country. "When you're facing the immigration judge, you should have some confidence that person is trying to apply the law in an even-handed way, and that person is looking at your individual case rather than thinking about some kind of political project," said David Hausman, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. NPR was unable to reach O'Brien for a comment about his rehiring as a judge and his court record. Kathryn Mattingly, the press secretary for EOIR, declined to comment on the political motivations of bringing back O'Brien, and instead pointed to his bio for his qualifications. She also said all judges must decide matters impartially, based on the law and cases before them. ### Accusations of immigration "weaponization" Immigration judges are traditionally not politically appointed, and come from two main tracks The first includes people who worked for the Department of Homeland Security, prosecuting the cases of those the U.S. wants to see removed from the country. The second track includes those who were lawyers representing immigrants. However, it is not required that someone practice immigration law to be considered for the role. Before becoming a judge, O'Brien had worked in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. He then got a job at the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a think tank that calls for lower levels of migration and stricter border policies. Like other civil servants, immigration judges can't be fired because of their politics. But after the Biden administration dismissed him in 2022, O'Brien argued the decision [was politically motivated](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/immigration-judge-trump-era-biden-conservative-appointees) and described it as a "weaponization" of immigration. Republicans in [Congress in 2022 also questioned](https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/2022-07/2022-07-20-JDJ-CEG-to-Garland-re-IJs.pdf) whether his dismissal and that of other judges violated law and were a coordinated effort between the Biden administration and immigration advocates in order to get friendlier decisions for immigrants seeking to stay in the U.S. The DOJ's [inspector general later looked](https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/22-061.pdf) into the issue. It concluded there was not sufficient evidence to warrant a full investigation into whether Biden's Justice Department had engaged in systemic favoring or disfavoring of immigration judge candidates. ### New memo questions Biden firings But since Trump returned to the White House, the Justice Department in [a February memo](https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1391456/dl?inline) noted it cannot be confident the Biden administration was ethical and lawful in how it dismissed immigration judges and other adjudicators. Immigration lawyers and other Trump critics see that memo as laying the groundwork to bring back O'Brien and others the Trump administration believes were unfairly fired, while removing those hired under Biden. "The message seems to me, if you don't tow the party line, you may find yourself either out of government or at least sent to a less desirable assignment," said Paul Schmidt, a retired immigration judge who worked in the immigration court system for over two decades, under presidents of both parties. Since coming back to the White House, Trump has moved to fire federal employees who [worked on federal investigations into him](https://www.npr.org/2025/01/27/nx-s1-5276334/justice-department-firings-trump-special-counsel-jack-smith), executed [broad firings across agencies](https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/01/g-s1-57485/hhs-fda-layoffs-doge-cdc-nih) and took steps to make it [easier to fire other federal employees](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/18/nx-s1-5369550/trump-federal-workers-schedule-f). He also [dismissed other](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/22/nx-s1-5372681/trump-immigration-judges-fired) immigration judges and immigration court personnel across the country, including in courts with open vacancies. "If an administration is able to change personnel really quickly, if it's able to bypass career people in decision-making, then it can have a huge impact on the number of people being deported and the kind of process that those people receive first," Hausman, from UC Berkeley, said. Mattingly, the press secretary for EOIR, said the DOJ's February memo was meant to re-establish "consistent and lawful practices" regarding adjudicator personnel matters, and said all judges must consider the law impartially and based on due process. Andrew Arthur is another former immigration judge, former Republican Hill staffer, and now a resident fellow at the nonpartisan Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for lower levels of legal migration. He also said he didn't view O'Brien's rehiring as politically motivated, since it could be possible compensation for his unfair firing under Biden. And he argued that all administrations have sought to bring in new judges who align with a new attorney general's policies. ### Efforts to reshape immigration courts It's not immediately clear if other judges dismissed under President Joe Biden have also been brought back. But the Trump administration has taken a number of other steps to transform immigration court practice to more quickly remove people from the U.S. and reduce the backlog of the [millions of cases](https://tracreports.org/phptools/immigration/backlog/) awaiting decisions in the courts. Trump himself has complained about the slow pace of proceedings in immigration court, saying [on social media](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114377993807616549): "We cannot give everyone a trial, because to do so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years." The administration has sought to [speed up the pace of asylum cases](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/g-s1-60430/trump-asylum-immigration) going through the immigration courts, and even bypass them altogether by [enacting wartime powers](https://www.npr.org/2025/03/17/1239050330/podcast-alien-enemies-act) and [expanding expedited removals](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/29/g-s1-63187/trump-courts-immigration-judges-due-process). It also placed "[self-deportation](https://www.npr.org/2025/05/06/g-s1-64513/trump-self-deportation-monetary)" advertisements in court waiting rooms. O'Brien's return to EOIR signals a potential additional approach: bringing like-minded civil servants back to the benches that decide the fates of both immigrants — and judges. In his new role, O'Brien will be responsible for overseeing the judges at the Annandale court in Virginia as an assistant chief immigration judge. Such a position is also responsible for managing labor relations at the court, writing probationary and training requirements — and eventually advising the DOJ on whether any new immigration judges get kept beyond their probationary periods. "It sends a clear message that big brother is watching," Schmidt, the retired immigration judge, said about O'Brien's position. ### Past statements on immigration O'Brien has a history of public views that mirror the Trump administration's more hardline immigration stances. During his two years as an immigration judge, [he had an almost 90% rate](https://tracreports.org/immigration/reports/judgereports/00750WAS/index.html) of denying asylum to people coming to his court, most of whom came from El Salvador, according to statistics from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonprofit immigration data tracker. That's higher than both the national average denial rate and denial rate for his specific court, which were about 58% and 55% respectively. "Who you get assigned to randomly in immigration court can really determine what happens in your case," said Hausman, the law professor. Judges have wide discretion to decide cases, and some have clear patterns of decisions; for example, some may grant asylum nearly every time, while others may deny it nearly every time. The varied decisions can depend on many factors, including the judge's career background, the immigrant population near their court, and whether a potential immigrant has a lawyer (most immigrants do not.) After leaving the bench, O'Brien went to work as director of investigations at the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a legal organization that defends stricter border policies. In that role, he testified before [various](https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/the-consequences-of-catch-and-release-at-the-border/) committees in Congress on issues related to approaches to immigration policy and the merits of [birthright citizenship](https://judiciary.house.gov/committee-activity/hearings/subject-jurisdiction-thereof-birthright-citizenship-and-fourteenth-0). "The diesel fuel being poured incessantly on this dumpster fire is a never-ending stream of bogus asylum claims that are, on their face, utterly meritless," O'Brien [said in a statement to](https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/OBrien-Written-Statement.pdf) the House Oversight Committee. He said most asylum requests exaggerate conditions in South and Central America in order to gain status in the U.S. Mattingly, the EOIR spokeswoman, defended O'Brien's qualifications and said all judges must follow the law. "Immigration judges adjudicate all matters before them, including asylum cases, on a case-by-case basis, according to U.S. immigration law, regulations and precedent decisions," Mattingly said in response to criticism of O'Brien's past comments. ### Questions about immigration court as "neutral arbiter" O'Brien's past statements about asylum became a central issue during a [Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals argument](https://www.youtube.com/live/4R25QGqa3IE) last year about whether an asylum case should be appealed. The DOJ argued O'Brien's comments, including that "99% of \[asylum\] claims were baseless," was not evidence of bias in the immigration courtroom and was simply a hyperbole. The judges on the panel were skeptical — but ultimately did not rule on those claims. Immigration advocates now say the Trump administration's hiring and firing decisions could threaten the crucial neutrality of the administrative courts. "They're no longer a neutral arbiter," said Jennifer Whitlock, senior policy counsel at the National Immigration Law Center, which advocates for low-income immigrants and their families. She fears immigration courts are poised to become a "deportation factory." "Then they might as well be in the same component as the enforcement or removal operations," she said.

 Vadzim Bulaty, a political asylee from Belarus who opposed the country's seven-term president [Alexander Lukashenko](https://www.npr.org/2025/01/25/nx-s1-5272583/belarusian-leader-alexander-lukashenko-is-expected-to-win-for-the-7th-time-in-a-row), was sitting in a Minnesota immigration courtroom last month. It was the first immigration court hearing for his eldest son, Aliaksandr Bulaty. Aliaksandr had come to the U.S. to join his father around May 2024 by seeking asylum through the app formerly known [as CBP One](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/08/g-s1-58984/cbp-one-app-migrants-dhs-border), which allowed migrants to schedule appointments at legal ports of entry. The goal of the first court hearing was to ask for more time for a lawyer to help get Aliaksandr's asylum application connected to his father's. But they never got a chance to tell the judge. During the hearing in May, the attorney representing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requested that the case be dismissed, his father recalled in an interview to NPR. "I understood the prosecutor's words as the case was being dismissed, and you can be free," Vadzim Bulaty said. "I didn't expect it to be a legal trap, a verbal trap." Father and son went to leave the building, believing their cases were now going to continue as one. Instead, officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement met them just a few steps from the exit with handcuffs and told Aliaksandr he was subject to expedited removal within three days. Aliaksandr has spent weeks at the Freeborn Adult Detention Center, with his lawyer fighting his deportation to a country where his father says he's likely to get immediately imprisoned. He is one of over 100 people who have been arrested at immigration courts across the country as a part of ICE's latest strategy to meet its steep new 3,000-person daily arrest quota. The strategy of DHS dismissing cases and then arresting migrants at court at first caught judges and lawyers off guard. The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which oversees immigration courts and is part of the Department of Justice, detailed the approach for judges in a May 30 email obtained by NPR. It's one of several tactics the Trump administration has used in order to streamline cases and more quickly deport people without legal status from the U.S. The tactics seem to be paying off: last week, the administration touted two days of national arrest numbers topping 2,000, their highest since President Trump took office, according to DHS. "This is all part of a strategy by the current administration to essentially bypass the legal system, to bypass courts, deny people the opportunity of getting a fair day in court in order to rapidly deport as many people as possible without respect for the rule of law," said Greg Chen, senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. In response to questions about the new strategy in immigration courts, ICE said most people who entered the U.S. illegally within the past two years can be quickly deported. "ICE is now following the law and placing these illegal aliens in expedited removal, as they always should have been," a spokesperson for the agency said in an email to NPR. Not everyone caught up in this tactic entered the country illegally; those who entered using the CBP One app during the Biden administration were granted temporary permissions to reside in the U.S., which Trump has since revoked. ### Change from past practice The May 30 email from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, addressed to court supervisors, mentioned that the courts' "caseload has greatly increased in the past few months." In order to reduce the backlog, judges are encouraged to immediately make a decision on whether to dismiss a case from the bench, and without giving migrants the typical 10 days to dispute it.  Veronica Cardenas, former assistant chief counsel at DHS under three prior presidents, including during Trump's first term, said that a motion to "dismiss" a case in immigration courts used to be a good thing. In the past, she said, that motion would remove the case from the court calendar and the migrant could seek relief from deportation through other ways such as by applying for asylum. "But now we're seeing that that dismissal actually means something worse for noncitizens, where ICE officers are waiting outside to handcuff them," said Cardenas, now an immigration lawyer in New Jersey. Under the new approach, after their case is dismissed, immigrants are arrested again, at times [before even leaving the building](https://www.kuow.org/stories/ice-agents-at-seattle-courthouse-arrest-people-whose-deportation-hearings-are-dismissed) — as happened with Aliaksandr Bulaty. Then they're put in a process called expedited removal: a fast-track for deportation that does not guarantee the right to a day in court and comes with a five-year restriction on attempting to return to the U.S. ICE arrested hundreds of people within the first few days of deploying this strategy in late May in immigration courts, according to a count from the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Immigration attorneys first noticed the new strategy in [about 14 cities](https://assets.aila.org/files/108ad9f3-73dd-4265-b80a-3d73ff46762d/25053003.pdf?1748616400k), and over the past few weeks has seen it expanded to other states and courts, including [Boston](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/09/metro/ice-arrests-at-boston-immigration-court/), [New York City](https://www.thecity.nyc/2025/05/28/ice-arrests-migrants-26-federal-plaza-pastor/), and [Northern Virginia](https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/cancel-arrest-deport-immigration-lawyer-warns-of-emerging-ice-tactic/3927509/). Lora Ries, director of the Border Security and Immigration Center at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, said the new policy aligns with Trump's mass deportation effort by helping courts reduce their case backlog — which currently sits at about [4 million](https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1344791/dl?inline) cases. She also said part of the strategy could also be encouraging people in detention to leave rather than fighting their claims. "The alien uses that factor \[detention\] to weigh what they're going to do as well," Ries said. "We can't overlook self-deportation." But immigration lawyers argue that this tactic of pulling people out of the court process sidesteps their due process. The situation puts immigrants in a situation where they may face arrest or an order of removal even if they're following the steps to try to stay in the U.S., Cardenas said. And if immigrants fail to show up for their scheduled court dates, that results in a final order of removal, too. Cardenas said the policy penalizes those who thought they were doing things "the right way." "What this administration is doing is instilling that fear, because the rules are changing every day and there's no stability," she said. ### Fears of returning to dictatorship Aliaksandr Bulaty is still fighting his removal. It helps that, unlike many other migrants, he has a lawyer: Malinda Schmiechen, who also represented his father's case. "My client is someone who has no criminal background. He had filed an asylum application," Schmiechen said. "He is now detained in a county jail and he's going to be there for a while." This week, Schmiechen was able to successfully argue before an immigration judge to reopen Aliaksandr's immigration case. This means that for now he won't be imminently deported, though he will stay in detention. His case now returns to the removal proceedings it was in before he was detained. Vadzim Bulaty said he is able to regularly talk to his son — and hears about his overcrowded detention room shared with 30 others; the lights don't turn off and they're not allowed to go outside for fresh air. Since immigrating to the U.S. in 2022, Vadzim Bulaty said he has generally felt welcome. The family has adjusted well, learned to smile and greet strangers in their small suburb of Otsego, Minn. "We are very glad that we ended up in America, because America is an amazing country in relation to immigrants," he said. "In no other country in the world would we be so at home." However, even with his own legal status, he is now worried for himself, his wife and his other sons. And he fears what could happen to his eldest. "I ran away from one dictatorship," he said. "And I would not want another dictatorship in America." NPR's Anna Yukhananov contributed to this report.

The US supreme court maintained on Wednesday a judicial block on a Republican-crafted [Florida](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/florida) law that makes it a crime for undocumented immigrants in the United States to enter the state. The justices denied a request by state officials to lift an order by the Florida-based US district judge Kathleen Williams that barred them from carrying out arrests and prosecutions under the law while a legal challenge plays out in lower courts. Williams ruled that Florida’s law conflicted with the federal government’s authority over immigration policy. The law, signed by the Republican governor, [Ron DeSantis](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ron-desantis), in February and backed by the Trump administration, made it a felony for some undocumented migrants to enter Florida, while also imposing pre-trial jail time without bond. “This denial reaffirms a bedrock principle that dates back 150 years: States may not regulate immigration,” said Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. “It is past time for states to get the message.” After Williams blocked the law, Florida’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, a Republican, and other state officials filed the emergency request on 17 June asking the supreme court to halt the judge’s order. Williams had found that the Florida law was probably unconstitutional for encroaching on the federal government’s exclusive authority over [US immigration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/usimmigration) policy. The state’s request to the justices was backed by America First Legal, a conservative group co-founded by Stephen Miller, a senior aide to Donald Trump and a key architect of the administration’s hardline immigration policies. Florida’s immigration measure, called SB 4-C, was passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature and signed into law by DeSantis. It made Florida one of at least seven states to pass such laws in recent years, according to court filings. The American Civil Liberties Union in April sued in federal court to challenge the law, arguing that the state should not be able to “enforce its own state immigration system outside of federal supervision and control”. Williams agreed. The law imposed mandatory minimum sentences for undocumented adult immigrants who are convicted of entering Florida after arriving in the United States without following federal immigration law. Florida officials contend that the state measure complies with – rather than conflicts with – federal law. Sentences for violations begin at nine months’ imprisonment for first offenders and reach up to five years for certain undocumented immigrants in the country who have felony records and enter Florida after having been deported or ordered by a federal judge to be removed from the United States. The state law exempts undocumented immigrants in the country who were given certain authorization by the federal government to remain in the United States. Florida’s immigration crackdown makes no exceptions, however, for those seeking humanitarian protection or with pending applications for immigration relief, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued in federal court to challenge the law. The ACLU filed a class-action suit on behalf of two undocumented immigrants who reside in Florida, an immigration advocacy group called the Florida Immigrant Coalition and the non-profit group Farmworker Association of Florida, whose members include immigrants in the United States illegally who travel in and out of Florida seasonally to harvest crops. Some of the arguments in the lawsuit included claims that it violates the federal “commerce clause”, which bars states from blocking commerce between states. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/09/supreme-court-florida-law-immigration#EmailSignup-skip-link-13) Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion Bacardi Jackson, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, in a statement issued after the challenge was filed said that Florida’s law “is not just unconstitutional – it’s cruel and dangerous”. Williams issued a preliminary injunction in April that barred Florida officials from enforcing the measure. The Atlanta-based 11th US circuit court of appeals in June upheld the judge’s ruling, prompting the Florida officials to make an emergency request to the supreme court. In a filing on 7 July, the state of Florida pointed to a brief filed by the Trump administration in the appeals case, in support of SB 4-C. “That decision is wrong and should be reversed,” administration lawyers wrote at the time. On the same day that Florida’s attorney general filed the state’s supreme court request, Williams found him in civil contempt of court for failing to follow her order to direct all state law enforcement officers not to enforce the immigration measure while it remained blocked by the judge. Williams [said](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/18/florida-attorney-general-contempt-immigration-arrests) that Uthmeier only informed the state law enforcement agencies about her order and later instructed them to arrest people anyway. Williams ordered Uthmeier to provide an update to the court every two weeks on any enforcement of the law. Other states have tried to pass similar laws, including Texas, Oklahoma, Idaho and Iowa, which have attempted to make entering their jurisdictions, while undocumented, a state crime.

 The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday left in place a lower court decision that blocked part of a Florida law making it a crime for undocumented immigrants to cross into the state. The statute imposed various mandatory prison terms for violating the law. The high court's action came in a one sentence order, without any elaboration and without any noted dissents. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the state legislation into law in February, and just two months later the law made national headlines when Florida's Highway Patrol arrested Juan Carlos Lopez-Garcia, an American-born U.S. citizen, for crossing into the state from Georgia. Lopez-Garcia was detained for 24 hours before his release. Immigrant rights organizations and undocumented immigrants sued, arguing that the new Florida law conflicted with federal immigration law, and under longstanding Supreme Court precedent, states must bow to federal law in the event of such conflicts. Florida, however, maintained that state legislation is necessary to curb the "evil effects of immigration," and that state law works in tandem with federal law. Until now, however, the Supreme Court has held that federal law occupies the immigration field if there is a conflict. Florida is not the first state to pass a law to criminalize illegal immigration, only to be blocked by the federal courts. In recent years, federal judges have blocked similar state efforts in Oklahoma, Iowa, and Idaho—each time deciding that a state law criminalizing illegal immigration would conflict with existing national laws. In 2024, the conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked Texas's efforts to enforce a similar law. While Wednesday's Supreme Court order blocked parts of the Florida law championed by DeSantis, the immigration issue remains a winning proposition for the governor. In May, he [announced](https://www.flgov.com/eog/news/press/2025/largest-joint-immigration-operation-florida-history-leads-1120-criminal-alien) that in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Florida led a "first-of-its-kind statewide operation" arresting more than 1,000 undocumented immigrants in less than a week.

Twelve immigrants and their legal advocates filed a class action lawsuit on Wednesday against the [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration), alleging that the justice department and the Department of Homeland Security colluded to arrest and deport potentially thousands of people at their immigration hearings. A coalition of immigrant advocacy groups – including the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Legal Education and Services (RAICES), National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), Democracy Forward and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCRSF) – filed the suit on behalf of 12 plaintiffs, the majority of whom were seeking protection in the US from anti-LGBTQ+ violence or female genital mutilation. In May, federal authorities began arresting people at [US immigration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/usimmigration) courts from New York and Arizona to Washington state in [what appeared to be a coordinated operation](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/22/ice-arrests-immigration-courts). The following month, New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was [arrested while attending](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/17/brad-lander-arrested-new-york-city-comptroller) immigration court with one migrant. Since then, [the supreme court has granted](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/23/supreme-court-trump-deportations) the Trump administration permission to deport migrants to countries they are not from, including to conflict-ridden places such as South Sudan. “The Trump administration has cast an unconscionably wide net to ensnare people and families who attend immigration court hearings in compliance with their legal obligations, only to face life-threatening imprisonment, swift removal and the prospect of indefinite family separation,” said Faisal Al-Juburi, chief external affairs officer at RAICES. “The egregious and unprecedented coordination amongst government agencies that we are witnessing not only inflicts irreparable harm upon infants and adults alike for seeking refuge in the US, but also establishes a chilling precedent in which law and order are abandoned in favor of stoking widespread panic and fear – leaving the entire American public at risk, regardless of immigration status.” The lawsuit asserts that the Trump administration “stripped people of basic due process rights afforded under [US immigration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/usimmigration) law and the fifth amendment in order to place them in expedited removal proceedings and deport them without hearings”, the plaintiffs said in a press release. All twelve of the plaintiffs were arrested at immigration hearings where they were requesting asylum or other legal protection to remain in the US. All but two remain in detention. One was already deported to Ecuador where he is now living in hiding due to his advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights. Some of the plaintiffs had lived in the US for years, and have been separated from US citizen family members. Their legal advocates say that homeland security and the justice department are pivoting away from a longstanding tradition of limiting arrests in immigration courts that could discourage people from appearing at their hearings. “These directives forsake any notion of immigration courts as a neutral forum, weaponizing them into a trap for immigrants who show up in reliance on the American promise of a fair process before a judge, only to be met instead with handcuffs and shunted into a fast-track deportation process controlled by Ice agents,” said Jordan Wells, senior staff attorney at LCCRSF. The case was filed in US district court in the District of Columbia. The plaintiffs ask the judge to declare Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and immigration court guidance “arbitrary and capricious” and vacate those guidelines.

 Attorney Stephen Born's calendar is supposed to be full of [immigration court](https://www.npr.org/2025/07/14/nx-s1-5467343/immigration-judges-doj-trump-enforcement) appointments. His small law office in New England currently handles 5,000 immigration cases, many of them assigned to the Chelmsford Immigration Court, just outside Boston. But on a recent Wednesday afternoon, seven of nine appointments were rescheduled. The next day, two out of three were pushed. And the following day, four out of six got delayed. "The court is not functioning," Born said. He said some of his clients have waited more than a decade for their court hearings. "Now that's being taken away. So the little light at the end of the tunnel for these people who have been following the American dream and playing by all the rules is increasingly being snuffed." The Chelmsford Immigration Court opened last year as a way to reduce the backlog on the overloaded Boston court, which used to process immigration cases for much of New England. Chelmsford and Boston are now the only courts located in New England, two of about [70 immigration courts and adjudication centers](https://www.justice.gov/eoir/immigration-court-operational-status) nationwide. Eight months into the Trump administration, there are only seven judges listed on the court's website, down from the 21 intended to serve. One of those seven is set to retire in the coming days, NPR has learned. Another has been detailed to review cases in Indianapolis. NPR spoke with nearly a dozen of the judges assigned to work at the Chelmsford Immigration Court who are no longer there. All attest to a clear pattern: judges vacating their benches, increased political pressure and a growing dread of not knowing if their jobs are safe. The Chelmsford court has hemorrhaged judges in recent months; many of those hired in the last two years have now been fired or resigned. The judicial vacancies there exacerbate a national backlog of about [3.7 million cases in the immigration court system](https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1344791/dl?inline). The Trump administration's twin efforts to downsize the federal government and increase immigration arrests are colliding in the immigration system, where immigration courts are run as part of the civil service inside the Department of Justice — apart from the judicial branch, which controls other federal courts.  The loss of court judges and staff throws a wrench in the already-limited due process afforded to immigrants seeking relief from deportation, former employees at Chelmsford and lawyers said. "People know not everybody is going to win," Stephanie Marzouk, an immigration attorney in Boston, said about her clients. "But at least they'll have a chance to have their case heard before a judge who is going to treat them fairly and get some sort of reasoned decision out of it." But Marzouk and Born said instead of getting their day in court, their clients are seeing cases postponed by years — even as far out as 2029. In the meantime, those awaiting final resolution could be arrested or deported, as part of the Trump administration's broader effort to boost mass deportations. "Whatever date I got today, it will definitely be rescheduled again because at this point, there are not enough judges in that court to address the amount of people and cases," said Diecelis Escano, another attorney with cases at Chelmsford. On July 18, a week after the latest round of dismissals, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the agency immigration courts are in, posted an [immigration judge vacancy announcement](https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.usajobs.gov/job/841105500__;!!Iwwt!WzUufGQfRI3ly_S-9kPJHTORqIzxfJoADcvApf-O48qO87MWfI1hCN-6aXjkxhErCLUX3bEH8Ldy3CCZpHHmnCMU4w6QKg$), which includes Chelmsford as a location. Kathryn Mattingly, a spokesperson for EOIR, said reducing the immigration court backlog was one of her agency's highest priorities. "Under this Administration, the total pending caseload of immigration court cases has fallen by [more than 391,000 cases](https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1344796/dl?inline__;!!Iwwt!WzUufGQfRI3ly_S-9kPJHTORqIzxfJoADcvApf-O48qO87MWfI1hCN-6aXjkxhErCLUX3bEH8Ldy3CCZpHHmnCMQ-3ekfw$)," she said, "and EOIR will continue to use all of its resources to adjudicate immigration cases fairly, expeditiously, and uniformly consistent with due process." ### Boston is an immigration hotspot The Chelmsford court is part of a region already feeling pressure from not having enough immigration judges. White House border czar Tom Homan vowed back in February he would be "[bringing hell](https://www.wbur.org/news/2025/02/22/trump-border-czar-homan-boston-police-hell)" to Boston, pledging to [crack down](https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-federal-partners-arrest-nearly-1500-illegal-aliens-massachusetts-during) on illegal immigration there. It's one of 18 cities the Department of Homeland Security [recently labeled](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-publishes-list-sanctuary-jurisdictions) a "sanctuary jurisdiction" that "impede enforcement of federal immigration laws." Immigration lawyers report a growing number of cases that are often time-sensitive. The International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, the union that represents immigration judges, said Chelmsford is among those courts with the biggest decrease in judges in the nation. "The court will be there physically, but there will be no judges to hear the cases," union president Matt Biggs said about what could happen if the downsizing trend continues. He said the administration now has 600 judges nationwide, down from 700 at the end of the Biden administration. Chelmsford opened for business in April 2024 and was meant to reduce the backlog on the overloaded Boston court. In interviews, former court personnel and lawyers estimate some 70,000 immigration cases were transferred from Boston to Chelmsford then. EOIR at the time said it wanted to add 21 judges to help process more cases, from asylum applications to final approval of deportation orders.  Nationally, the union has not identified clear patterns over whom the administration is choosing to dismiss. There have been three rounds of firings, including getting rid of [a class of new judges that had not even taken the bench yet](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/08/nx-s1-5335523/trump-immigration-judges). The dismissals included former Homeland Security prosecutors, veterans, [decades-long federal employees](https://www.npr.org/2025/07/30/nx-s1-5476311/trump-fired-workers-justice-department), and those with years of immigration law experience. Others have chosen to leave the bench voluntarily in expectation of layoffs or to take advantage [of early retirement](https://www.npr.org/2025/07/14/nx-s1-5467343/immigration-judges-doj-trump-enforcement). The vacant halls of the court betray the remnants of judges whose names have been swiftly scrubbed [from the EOIR website](https://www.justice.gov/eoir/chelmsford-immigration-court). Tucked in a corner on the second floor is the name plate for Nancy Griffiths, an immigration judge who left her decades-long job as a judge at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and moved from Phoenix to work at Chelmsford. "It was such an incredibly proud moment. My family came to Washington for my investiture ceremony. My children robed me," Griffiths said.  She said she will leave her employment in September. "We were so excited — and a year and a half later, we're scrambling and trying to figure out what to do with our lives and put our lives back together," she said. Griffiths recalls the "demoralizing" process of helping colleagues pack up their offices after they received termination notices. "People's lives have been torn upside down and that is a waste," Griffiths said. She said some people moved away from spouses and children, and EOIR spent money on training and building the new court. "That was all for nothing," she said. ### Leaving thousands of cases behind Former Judge Angela Munro received the email in April notifying her that her employment would be terminated and placed on administrative leave — just a few days shy of the end of her two-year probationary period. Munro spent 16 years working at EOIR, first as a law clerk and then at the Board of Immigration Appeals. "I didn't have blinders on. I knew what was possible," Munro said — given the layoffs of other [probationary employees](https://www.npr.org/2025/06/23/nx-s1-5431871/federal-employees-fired-hiring-trump-civil-service) in the federal government. "But I also knew in my mind that I was doing a good job and that immigration judges are supposedly needed." Munro had about 4,000 cases on her docket, she said, and had completed about 1,000. She describes her dismissal as "abrupt and traumatic." She returned to her desk around 3 p.m. after issuing what ended up being her final oral decision on an asylum case. That's when she saw an email asking her to pack up her office and be out that day. Each laid-off or departing judge leaves about 4,000 cases each for their colleagues to pick up, NPR found in its interviews. Tens of thousands of cases are now estimated to have been affected by the loss of judges at Chelmsford. Former Judge Jenny Beverly, who left EOIR in July, said she was preparing to be assigned thousands of extra cases on behalf of judges who had been let go. "I wanted to be a part of the system to help move things along," Beverly said about her reasons for joining the Chelmsford court. Beverly commuted up to two hours each way from her home in Maine to adjudicate cases in Chelmsford. Her decision to leave came after leaders at EOIR requested that she shift her workload to handle cases in New Jersey to focus on those already in detention. "Here I was sitting in Massachusetts, but being asked on short notice to handle cases in New Jersey. And according to my boss, it was because EOIR was prioritizing those cases instead," Beverly said. She shared internal communication with NPR that backed up that request. "Any immigration judge can hear any case at any time, and adjudicating detained immigration cases remains a high priority for the agency," Mattingly, the EOIR spokesperson, said in response to questions about judges being moved.  As more people have been placed in detention, and judges have been dismissed, EOIR has strained with the pressure of keeping up with cases. For example, Beverly left EOIR on July 2, but still had two hearings on the electronic TV schedule in the Chelmsford waiting area on display on July 27. Griffiths, the judge who moved from Phoenix, noted that her own docket included pending cases from 2013 that over the years had bounced from one judge to another. The judicial vacancies in Chelmsford exacerbate a national backlog of millions of cases in the immigration court system. The most [recent judicial terminations came](https://www.npr.org/2025/07/14/nx-s1-5467343/immigration-judges-doj-trump-enforcement) after Congress approved a mega-spending bill that immediately allocated over $3 billion to the Justice Department for immigration-related activities, including for hiring more immigration judges. The Homeland Security Department has moved quickly to recruit attorneys who [will represent ICE in courts](https://www.usajobs.gov/job/841243400) like Chelmsford. But the Justice Department has not launched a similar recruitment campaign to hire more immigration judges, despite posting positions online. Immigration advocates have raised concerns that [without the resources to properly process those arrested](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/29/g-s1-63187/trump-courts-immigration-judges-due-process), the limited due process afforded to some immigrants is undercut. "EOIR continues to adjudicate immigration cases fairly, expeditiously, and uniformly consistent with due process," Mattingly told NPR as a response to those concerns. Judges said that courtroom misconduct, complaints from private or government attorneys, or an inability to manage caseload were among the reasons judges were dismissed in the past. But the most recent groups of terminated judges have been left to guess why they were not kept on beyond their two-year probationary period. Instead of reasons specific to them, each got a short email — similar to one sent to other laid-off employees at the Justice Department and other agencies. "Pursuant to Article II of the Constitution, the Attorney General has decided not to extend your term or convert it to a permanent appointment," according to the emails shared with NPR.  George Pappas was among the latest judges to be dismissed in July. He listened to cases until his last day but had been expecting the termination notice since the April round of firings — and had already cleared out his office in preparation. "Anything that was still hanging on my walls was taken down. I took out all my personal belongings," Pappas said. "From that point forward, I worked in a blank room and it was my way of taking control of that which I could control. It was my silent protest." Sitting in a nearly empty apartment, he prepared to move back home to North Carolina. He closed his 20-year independent practice to serve as an immigration judge, where he said he wanted to make a dent in the backlog of cases.  "I didn't grant asylum to everybody, but when I did, I changed somebody's life," he said. The day he got his notice, he said, he had spent several hours listening to a case where in the end he granted a cancellation of removal, a protection from deportation that allows people to pursue a green card. "It was one of the best decisions I made," he said, recalling that it was also one of the most difficult cases of his tenure. "I sort of felt like a supernova: I was brightest at the very end and then the hammer came down and fired me."

 The halls of the [immigration courts](https://www.npr.org/2025/08/13/nx-s1-5482883/trump-immigration-court-firings-chelmsford) in lower Manhattan are quiet on a recent August day — except for the sounds of five men wearing masks and sunglasses, looking at their phones and talking among themselves. They are immigration and federal law enforcement officers, continuing the show of force that has thrown immigration courts into chaos. Eight months ago, the courts were a little-known part of the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), where judges oversee the cases of individuals living in the country illegally. This summer, however, the halls of 26 Federal Plaza and 290 Broadway in lower Manhattan, along with dozens of other courts nationwide, became the [epicenters of the Trump administration's efforts to increase](https://www.npr.org/2025/06/12/nx-s1-5409403/trump-immigration-courts-arrests) the rate of immigration arrests. "There weren't any ICE agents in the very beginning, and in the past six months it's increasing," said John Sarabella, a volunteer with the New Sanctuary Coalition**,** an immigrant rights group that advocates against deportations**.** "And their strategies and their tactics have become more and more aggressive and assertive." Sarabella, who says he visits the courts in Manhattan once a week, now witnesses arrests every time. He is one of the many who oppose the Trump administration's immigration enforcement policies. Various groups protest outside the buildings, clergy members escort immigrants to hearings, and there are occasional arrests or clashes between law enforcement and elected officials. Last week, New York Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, filed a brief in court calling for an end to courthouse arrests by federal agencies.  "This campaign has taken a heavy toll on our residents," [the filing stated](https://www.nyc.gov/assets/home/downloads/pdf/press-releases/2025/8192025AMICUSFILED.pdf), adding that the strategy deters people from attending their mandatory hearings and weakens trust in law enforcement. The presence of federal agents conducting [immigration enforcement](https://www.npr.org/2025/08/01/g-s1-80636/trump-immigration-ice-federal-workers) has thrown the established hierarchy within these hallways into mayhem. "We've seen an institution die in real time," said Benjamin Remy, a senior staff attorney with the New York Legal Assistance Group, which provides legal services to immigrants navigating the court system. "To see this institution that we've been arguing cases in, that we've been representing people in for years and years, essentially just be eviscerated by the Department of Homeland Security — and in a matter of months — has been absolutely surreal." Remy, like other legal advocates, spends his days in the halls of the immigration courts, speaking with immigrants as they are apprehended by officers in the courtroom doorways — even when a judge grants them additional time or a new hearing date. He said these arrests highlight [broader issues of due process.](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/29/g-s1-63187/trump-courts-immigration-judges-due-process) "This nexus that we're seeing, even just here in New York City, in the immigration courts, just really raises all these fundamental questions for us as to democracy and what country we want to live in," Remy said. "It's also important to realize that this isn't solely an immigration issue. This is a fundamental due process, constitutional issue."  A week before NPR's visit to both federal buildings, 26 Federal Plaza had been cleared out after immigration officials found an [unknown white powder in an envelope](https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1957461496226611494). Various advocacy organizations regularly demonstrate against arrests. The atmosphere inside the buildings offers contrasting experiences. Some visitors come through security joyfully, combing their hair as they prepare to finally be sworn in as U.S. citizens. Others nervously clutch their binders and plastic accordion folders filled with personal documentation, diplomas and the paperwork they hope will allow them to remain. The churn is quick. In one courtroom at 26 Federal Plaza, an immigration judge ticks through over two dozen cases. He calls each person up by name, many virtually, and announces for each that removal proceedings have begun for them to leave the U.S. He asks the migrants' lawyers if their clients admit to the charges brought by the Department of Homeland Security — that the clients entered or are in the country illegally. The answer: yes. The judge asks the DHS lawyers to designate a country of removal: China, Guyana, Colombia, India. Finally, the judge sets a date for an individual hearing — a chance to pursue asylum, cancellation of removal or other forms of relief. The dates? All in 2029. That year has become routine in courts across the country as [immigration judges](https://www.npr.org/2025/07/14/nx-s1-5467343/immigration-judges-doj-trump-enforcement) juggle a [3.7 million case backlog](https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1344791/dl?inline). Remy, the lawyer at NYLAG, said over the past few weeks, fewer people have shown up for their hearings, risking final removal orders. "People are being put into an absolutely impossible situation," he said. "They're being forced to gamble their own liberty versus potentially continuing with their case, continuing with their claim."  Court security is buckling underneath the pressure of conflicting protocol instructions. As a result, NPR journalists were sometimes granted access to the public areas as long as they avoided recording — a directive [consistent with longstanding EOIR policy](https://www.justice.gov/eoir/reference-materials/OOD1910/dl?inline=). At other times, sometimes in the same building, they were allowed to record in some hallways, barred from other hallways, and denied entry to spaces designated for the public. Paragon Systems employees, whose company holds the security contract under the Federal Protective Service, a DHS agency, acknowledged to NPR that its directives kept changing. In one courtroom on the 20th floor of 290 Broadway, a judge began to run through a few hours of migrants' first court appearances. A young girl appeared via video conference, representing herself. Her case was transferred to a juvenile docket. She will have to reappear. Four men sat on the wooden benches, waiting to have their cases heard. Suddenly, federal agents told NPR journalists — the only members of the press in the public hearing — to leave the room. Half a dozen agents, including officers with vests that read "ICE," and a security official with Paragon, told reporters they weren't allowed in the room. The court clerk stepped into the doorway of the open courtroom due to the commotion — while officers asked NPR repeatedly to step out. Minutes later the court clerk reemerged, and allowed NPR to reenter the courtroom, though federal agents lingered by the door. Officers could be heard asking photographers why some reporters were allowed in, and those with cameras were not. The judge whispered to the clerk, who left and returned with what appeared to be an additional court official who walked across the courtroom and closed the door, leaving the officers out of sight. A man from the Dominican Republic told the judge in the room that he had little reason to stay. He opted to voluntarily depart. He left, and was followed by federal officials down the hall and out of sight.  The next day, tensions escalated. Back on the 20th floor, dozens of immigrants, court observers, federal agents and journalists lingered in the waiting room and halls. People nervously tapped their feet. Girls in dresses were laughing among themselves as they sat next to a plainclothed, unmasked law enforcement officer. A small group of federal law enforcement agents, wearing vests that read "police" and "federal police," sat in the corner of the waiting room, mostly out of sight and occasionally pulling black-colored face covers up and down. Another, wearing a mask, paced the halls. As NPR and a court observer — an immigrant advocate — entered the hall, federal enforcement brushed past. A federal supervisor, who was unmasked and had been sitting in the waiting area earlier, yelled at NPR: "stop f\*\*\*\*\*\*\* following me! Why are you F\*\*\*\*\*\* following me?" before turning and yelling the same thing to the court observer. "It's not f\*\*\*\*\*\*\* about you!" she retorted. As they turned the corner, more shouting could be heard. "Don't f\*\*\*\*\*\*\* touch me," the woman yelled. "Why are you pushing me? Why are you shoving me? I am not following you!" The officer grabbed the observer and took her through solid double doors that lead to a freight elevator bay. The altercation continued: "Why are you taking me?" the woman shouted. "Because you're following me around," the officer yelled. "I am not following you around. Not everything is about you," the woman responded. The officer and the woman disappeared down the elevator. Their voices trailed through the open door of the courtroom as proceedings continued. EOIR declined comment on the incident and referred questions regarding enforcements, access and security to DHS. DHS did not respond to a request for comment. Six feet away, several families were sitting in the waiting area waiting for their names to be called. Later, regular court observers said this was a quiet day in court. _—With reporting by_ [_Sarah Ventre_](https://www.npr.org/people/g-s1-27882/sarah-ventre) _and_ [_Isabella Gomez Sarmiento_](https://www.npr.org/people/766798576/isabella-gomez-sarmiento) _If you have tips related immigration or the Department of Homeland Security, please contact Ximena Bustillo at [email protected]. She can also be reached via encrypted message on Signal at ximenabustillo.77_

Nadine YousifBBC News, Washington and Regan MorrisBBC News, Los Angeles The US Supreme Court has ruled sweeping immigration raids in Los Angeles can continue for now, lifting a federal judge's order that had barred agents from making stops without "reasonable suspicion". The Monday ruling is a win for President Donald Trump, who has vowed to conduct record-level deportations of migrants in the country illegally. The 6-3 decision of the conservative-majority court allows agents to stops suspects based solely on their race, language or job, while a legal challenge to the recent immigration sweeps in LA works its way through the courts. The liberal justices dissented, saying the decision puts constitutional freedoms at risk. Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in Monday's decision that the lower court's restraining order went too far in restricting how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents could carry out stops or questioning of suspected unlawful migrants. "To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion," he wrote. "However, it can be a 'relevant factor' when considered along with other salient factors." The Supreme Court's three liberal justices issued a strong dissent penned by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote that "countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed simply because of their looks, their accents, and the fact they make a living by doing manual labour". "Today, the Court needlessly subjects countless more to these exact same indignities," she wrote. The White House welcomed the ruling, vowing in a statement to "continue fulfilling its mandate to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens". Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom, both Democrats, criticised the decision. "Today's ruling is not only dangerous - it's un-American and threatens the fabric of personal freedom in the United States of America," Bass said in a statement. Newsom warned that "Trump's private police force now has a green light to come after your family". Watch: 'We're emotional and disappointed', says plaintiff on Supreme Court ruling The decision lifts an order by US District Judge Maame E Frimpong in Los Angeles, who had said that there is a "mountain of evidence" showing the raids were violating the US Constitution. The order halted the raids, with Judge Frimpon saying the Trump administration cannot rely on factors like "apparent race or ethnicity" or "speaking Spanish" alone to stop or question individuals. The judge also barred immigration enforcement agents from conducting stops based solely on someone's presence "at a particular location" like a bus stop, agricultural site or car wash, or based solely on the type of work an individual does. The temporary restraining order was issued in a legal challenge by immigration advocacy groups, who argued that immigration officers in Los Angeles were conducting "roving patrols" indiscriminately, and were denying individuals access to lawyers. Judge Frimpong said this may violate the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable government searches and seizures. The Supreme Court, however, said that the administration's actions have a good chance of ultimately being considered constitutional by the federal courts. While its decision only pertained to Judge Frimpong's temporary restraining order, the justices also showed how the court would approach the lawsuit should it have to consider an appeal down the road. Lawyers for the Department of Homeland Security have argued that immigration officers are targeting people based on their legal status in the US, not skin colour, race or ethnicity. They have also said that Judge Frimpong's order wrongly restricted ICE operations. Those behind the lawsuit challenging the raids said they were "truly disgusted" with the Supreme Court's decision. "I didn't think this would be possible," Brian Gavidia, an American citizen who was briefly detained by federal agents in June, told the BBC. "I thought we had laws here about racial profiling." Armando Gudino, a plaintiff in the case, raised possible national implications of the ruling. Mr Gudino, the executive director of the Los Angeles Worker Center Network, a worker and immigrant rights advocacy group, said everyone in the US should be worried, arguing the court had "legalised racism". The Trump administration began sweeping immigration raids in Los Angeles in June, stopping and arresting people at Home Depot and other workplaces, and were met with immediate protests and civil unrest.. Trump then deployed nearly 2,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines in response, without authorisation from the state of California. A federal judge has since ruled that the National Guard deployment was illegal. The White House responded that "a rogue judge is trying to usurp" the president's authority "to protect American cities from violence and destruction." The Supreme Court's decision to let the raids continue comes as the Trump administration looks to ramp up law enforcement in other cities, including Washington DC. In August, Trump ordered National Guard troops to the American capital to address what he says is high crime in the city, and is also using federal officers to bolster the district's law enforcement. He is now signalling that this week he will decide if he will also send federal law enforcement and the National Guard to Chicago.

Federal agents can resume sweeping immigration operations in [Los Angeles](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/los-angeles) after the [US supreme court](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/us-supreme-court) lifted an order barring the [Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) administration from stopping people solely based on their race, language or job. The court ruled in favor of Trump’s administration, granting a stay against a restraining order from another judge that found “roving patrols” of immigration agents were conducting indiscriminate arrests in LA. The ruling from the conservative majority is a win for the administration in its ongoing effort to enact mass deportations. US district judge Maame E Frimpong in [Los Angeles](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/los-angeles) had found a “mountain of evidence” that enforcement tactics were violating the constitution. The plaintiffs**,** who said the administration’s approach amounted to “blatant racial profiling”, included US citizens swept up in immigration stops. An appeals court had left Frimpong’s ruling in place. But the [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration) argued the order wrongly restricted agents carrying out its widespread crackdown on illegal immigration. The supreme court’s 6-3 decision comes as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents also step up enforcement in Washington amid Trump’s unprecedented federal takeover of the capital city’s law enforcement and deployment of the national guard. Meanwhile, Chicago is readying itself for an immigration operation expected [this week](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/08/chicago-suburb-evanston-federal-agents) and the possible deployment of the national guard following weeks of threats. Gavin Newsom, the California governor, condemned the decision, [writing](https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/1965127261079883994) that the administration is targeting Latinos and that “Trump’s private police force now has a green light to come after your family.” The ACLU of southern [California](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/california) called it a “devastating setback”. “In running to the Supreme Court to request this stay, the government made clear that its enforcement operation in Southern California is driven by race,” Mohammad Tajsar, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, said in a statement. “We will continue fighting the administration’s racist deportation scheme to ensure every person living in Southern California—regardless of race or status—is safe.” The Trump administration celebrated the ruling with Pam Bondi, the attorney general, describing it as a “massive victory”. “Now, ICE can continue carrying out roving patrols in California without judicial micromanagement,” she said. The lawsuit will now continue to unfold in California. It was filed by the ACLU and immigrant advocacy groups that accused Trump’s administration of systematically targeting brown-skinned people during a crackdown on illegal immigration in the Los Angeles area. The Trump administration has made California a center of its deportation campaign, sending federal agents near [schools](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/19/los-angeles-ice-raids-teachers-schools) and [workplaces](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/01/ice-raids-crops-california-farms) and [Home Depot](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/16/home-depot-ice-raids-los-angeles) [stores](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/14/los-angeles-ice-raid). The large show of federal agents – along with the deployment of the military – has left southern California communities in fear. In its order granting the stay, the court majority wrote that the government sometimes makes stops to check the immigration status of people who work jobs in landscaping or construction, among others “that often do not require paperwork and are therefore attractive to illegal immigrants; and who do not speak much if any English”. “Immigration stops based on reasonable suspicion of illegal presence have been an important component of [US immigration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/usimmigration) enforcement for decades, across several presidential administrations,” the decision states. In a stinging dissent joined by her two liberal colleagues, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote: “Countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed simply because of their looks, their accents, and the fact they make a living by doing manual labor. Today, the Court needlessly subjects countless more to these exact same indignities.” Department of Homeland Security attorneys have said immigration officers target people based on illegal presence in the US, not skin color, race or ethnicity. Even so, the justice department argued that the order wrongly restricted the factors that Ice agents can use when deciding who to stop. The Los Angeles region has been a battleground for the Trump administration after its hardline immigration strategy spurred protests and the deployment of the national guard and the marines. The number of immigration raids in the Los Angeles area appeared to slow shortly after Frimpong’s order came down in July, but recently they have become more frequent again, including an operation in which agents jumped out of the back of a rented box truck and made arrests at an LA Home Depot store. The supreme court decision was condemned by LA mayor [Karen Bass](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/karen-bass), who said it “isn’t just an attack on the people of Los Angeles, this is an attack on every person in every city in this country. “I want the entire nation to hear me when I say this isn’t just an attack on the people of Los Angeles, this is an attack on every person in every city in this country. Today’s ruling is not only dangerous – it’s un-American and threatens the fabric of personal freedom in the United States of America.” The plaintiffs argued that Frimpong’s order only prevents federal agents from making stops without reasonable suspicion, something that aligns with the constitution and supreme court precedent. “Numerous US citizens and others who are lawfully present in this country have been subjected to significant intrusions on their liberty,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote. “Many have been physically injured; at least two were taken to a holding facility.” [ Trump administration begins new Ice operation in Massachusetts ](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/06/trump-administration-immigration-crackdown-massachusetts) The Trump administration said the order is too restrictive, “threatening agents with sanctions if the court disbelieves that they relied on additional factors in making any particular stop”. D John Sauer, the solicitor general, also argued the order can’t stand under the high court’s recent decision restricting universal injunctions, though the plaintiffs disagreed. The order from Frimpong, who was nominated by Joe Biden, barred authorities from using factors such as apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or English with an accent, presence at a location such as a tow yard or car wash, or someone’s occupation as the only basis for reasonable suspicion for detention. It’s covered a combined population of nearly 20 million people, nearly half of whom identify as Hispanic or Latino. Plaintiffs included three detained immigrants and two US citizens. One of the citizens was Los Angeles resident Brian Gavidia, who was shown in a 13 June video being seized by federal agents as he yelled: “I was born here in the States. East LA, bro!” Gavidia was released about 20 minutes later after showing agents his identification, as was another citizen stopped at a car wash, according to the lawsuit. Agents arrested Pedro Vasquez Perdomo, a named plaintiff in the case, at a bus stop in June while he waited to be picked up for work. “When Ice grabbed me, they never showed a warrant or explained why. I was treated like I didn’t matter – locked up, cold, hungry, and without a lawyer. Now, the supreme court says that’s okay? That’s not justice. That’s racism with a badge,” said Vasquez Perdomo said in a statement following the decision.

Immigration advocates warned that the [supreme court](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/us-supreme-court) has “effectively legalized racial profiling”, granting federal agents the power to stop people in [Los Angeles](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/los-angeles) simply for speaking Spanish or appearing Latino – and opening the door, they say, to a broader unraveling of civil rights protections nationwide. In a 6–3 decision on Monday, the court’s conservative majority [lifted](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/08/trump-supreme-court-ice-immigration-california) restrictions on “roving” immigration patrols across the LA area after a lower court found that federal agents were indiscriminately targeting people on the basis of race, language, employment or location. The high court’s ruling alarmed civil liberties advocates and rattled immigrant communities in a county where [one in three residents is foreign-born](https://abc7.com/post/7-on-your-side-investigates-how-much-does-immigrant-community-make-up-fabric-los-angeles-county/16770188/), and where the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement has already seen armed and masked federal agents detain residents, including US citizens, near bus stops, construction sites, churches and [other public spaces](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/12/los-angeles-ice-raids) with little explanation or due process. At a news conference near a Home Depot in a heavily Latino neighborhood of Los Angeles, where [raids](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/16/home-depot-ice-raids-los-angeles) in June sparked [massive protests](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/09/los-angeles-protests), the city’s mayor, [Karen Bass](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/karen-bass), assailed the decision, saying the supreme court “has now given the green light for law enforcement to profile and detain Angelenos based on their race”. Bass quoted from the forceful dissent issued by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina to serve on the court, who warned: “We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.” “I agree with her – I dissent,” Bass said. “We all dissent because from the beginning, we have known that [Los Angeles](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/los-angeles) has been used as a test case for total dominance and unchecked power by the federal government.” The decision was released shortly before the Department of Homeland Security announced the [start of a new immigration operation](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/08/chicago-suburb-evanston-federal-agents) in Chicago on Monday, and as the Trump administration continues to carry out immigration stops in Washington DC as part of its [unprecedented takeover](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/06/dc-national-guard-youth-crime) of the nation’s capital. Monday’s supreme court decision stems from a lawsuit challenging the tactics used in a series of aggressive immigration sweeps in the Los Angeles area. Plaintiffs argued that federal agents were targeting people without reasonable suspicion – in violation of the fourth amendment, which protects against unlawful searches and seizures. In July, US district judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong issued a [temporary restraining order](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/12/trump-administration-ordered-to-halt-indiscriminate-immigration-stops-in-california-over-racial-profiling-concerns) barring agents from stopping people based solely on four factors, alone or in combination, including race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or accented English, being in certain public areas such as day laborer sites, or the type of work they do. The administration celebrated the supreme court ruling as a “massive victory” for Trump’s aim to carry out the “largest mass deportation campaign” in US history. [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/09/supreme-court-immigration-los-angeles-reaction#img-2) Demonstrators hold up signs during a news conference to discuss the supreme court ruling in Los Angeles on 8 September. Photograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty Images “DHS law enforcement will continue to FLOOD THE ZONE in Los Angeles,” the department [declared on X](https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1965096915319902465) shortly after the ruling. In a separate post on [X](https://x.com/AGPamBondi/status/1965092503423521044), attorney general Pam Bondi said the ruling means immigration enforcement agents “can continue carrying out roving patrols in California without judicial micromanagement”. The justices did not offer a rationale for their order, which has become increasingly common in cases decided on the court’s so-called “emergency docket”. But in a concurring opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, part of the conservative majority and a Trump appointee, cited Los Angeles’s large undocumented population and wrote that race can be a “relevant factor”, alongside other “common sense” indicators, such as employment in landscaping, agriculture or construction and limited English proficiency, in forming a “reasonable suspicion” to interrogate individuals about their immigration status. In her dissent, Sotomayor said Kavanaugh’s description of the stops “blinks reality”. Among the plaintiffs in the case are two US citizens who say they were stopped and questioned. “Immigration agents are now being given the power to profile, stop, detain, and arrest people because of the color of their skin, the language they speak, or the work that they do,” Armando Gudino, the executive director of the Los Angeles Worker Center Network non-profit and a plaintiff in the case, said at the Los Angeles press conference. “In doing so, they have effectively legalized racial profiling and by extension racial discrimination.” Several speakers said the ruling punishes the very people whose labor powers the state’s – and the country’s – economy – and warned its effects would ripple through every sector of American life. “California is the fourth largest economy in the world, not by accident, but because of the contributions of our immigrant communities,” said Eunisses Hernandez, a Los Angeles City councilmember who represents [Westlake](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/06/ice-border-patrol-home-depot-los-angeles), a neighborhood advocates say has been traumatized by repeated immigration raids. “You don’t get to profit off of our labor and then criminalize our existence.” In a statement, the California governor, [Gavin Newsom](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gavin-newsom), denounced the decision, saying: “Trump’s hand-picked Supreme Court majority just became the Grand Marshal for a parade of racial terror in Los Angeles.” “Trump’s private police force now has a green light to come after your family – and every person is now a target,” the governor said. “But we will continue fighting these abhorrent attacks on Californians.” While Monday’s decision allowed immigration agents to resume patrols using race as a factor, it is not the final say on the matter. A federal judge will hold a hearing later this month on whether to reimpose more permanent protections while the case makes its way through the lower courts. During the peak of the raids earlier this summer, volunteers formed neighborhood patrols to watch for the presence of federal agents, while community groups organized food deliveries for immigrants too afraid to leave their homes. According to Flor Melendrez, the executive director of the Clean Carwash Worker Center, about 81 car washes had been raided and nearly 250 workers were detained, as part of the federal immigration crackdown that separated families and detained children. “Let this be your call to action, to stand with our community, to stand with workers,” Melendrez said at the Westlake press conference on Monday. Taking the podium after her, Angelica Salas, a longtime immigrant rights activist and head of the LA-based Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), gestured upward toward the apartment building where residents peered down from their windows. “They’re the ones who have been witnesses to all sorts of attacks,” Salas said. A young boy pressed his face to the glass above a crowd of activists holding signs that read “Ice out of LA” and “Ice out of Home Depot”. “We will continue fighting,” she vowed. “We will continue despite a lack of protection.”

* Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller, speaks with a federal agent alongside other local elected officials to try to [gain access to the 10th floor](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/18/new-york-ice-protest) of the Jacob K Javits Federal Building in New York on 18 September 2025. For months, federal agents have arrested people [following their immigration hearings](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/25/new-york-immigration-courts-photo-essay) in the hallways and have held them on the 10th floor Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian  [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2025/sep/19/arrests-immigration-court-new-york-in-pictures#img-1) * A federal agent blocks access to the 10th floor Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian  [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2025/sep/19/arrests-immigration-court-new-york-in-pictures#img-2) * Local elected officials chant on the 10th floor after repeatedly being denied access Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian  [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2025/sep/19/arrests-immigration-court-new-york-in-pictures#img-3) * Federal police officers arrest Brad Lander alongside Marcela Mitaynes, an assembly member. Brad Lander was [previously arrested](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/17/brad-lander-arrested-new-york-city-comptroller) in the same building on 17 June after trying to safely escort a man out of the building following his immigration hearing Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian  [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2025/sep/19/arrests-immigration-court-new-york-in-pictures#img-4) * Brad Lander and Gustavo Rivera, a state senator, are loaded into an elevator Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian  [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2025/sep/19/arrests-immigration-court-new-york-in-pictures#img-5) * Activists chant while sitting on the driveway to an underground garage outside the Jacob K Javits Federal Building Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian  [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2025/sep/19/arrests-immigration-court-new-york-in-pictures#img-6) * Police arrest Jumaane Williams, New York’s public advocate Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian  [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2025/sep/19/arrests-immigration-court-new-york-in-pictures#img-7) * Immigration activists chant as police arrest people Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian  [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2025/sep/19/arrests-immigration-court-new-york-in-pictures#img-8) * A member of the clergy is among those arrested Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian  [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2025/sep/19/arrests-immigration-court-new-york-in-pictures#img-9) * Police load a detained immigration activist into a van Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian  [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2025/sep/19/arrests-immigration-court-new-york-in-pictures#img-10) * A police officer moves to detain the last remaining immigration activist Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian  [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2025/sep/19/arrests-immigration-court-new-york-in-pictures#img-11) * Detained immigration activists stand in line to be loaded into a police bus Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian  [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2025/sep/19/arrests-immigration-court-new-york-in-pictures#img-12) * Claire Valdez and Robert Carroll, who are New York state assembly members, Jabari Brisport, a state senator, and Emily Gallagher, a council member, celebrate after being released from custody Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian  [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2025/sep/19/arrests-immigration-court-new-york-in-pictures#img-13) * Emily Gallagher speaks after being released from custody alongside ten other local elected officials Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian  [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2025/sep/19/arrests-immigration-court-new-york-in-pictures#img-14)

The Trump administration has started [recruiting hundreds](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/02/hegseth-trump-immigration-pentagon-lawyers) of military lawyers to sit as immigration judges, presiding over what are often life-and-death federal decisions for immigrants in the US, as experts warn the White House strategy is high-risk and arguably unlawful. The judgeships are temporary, but renewable, and the government’s goal is to fill an acute need for more immigration judges [amid](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/jul/23/trump-ice-data-deportations-detention) Donald Trump’s mass deportation [mission](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/series/ice-air--disappeared-and-deported-in-trump-s-america) – which is now happening even as experienced immigration judges seemingly deemed to have fallen foul of the president’s agenda are being purged from the courts. Active-duty armed forces officers and reservists, part of the military’s justice arm known as the Judge Advocate General’s (Jag) corps, which has given rise to the lawyers there being nickname ‘Jags’, are getting [messages](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/us/politics/military-lawyers-immigration-judges.html?partner=slack&smid=sl-share) asking them to volunteer for the high-stakes immigration roles. But experts warn that military lawyers do not have the specialized knowledge to perform the duties of an immigration judge and may only have gotten an hour or two of immigration law training – if that - during JAG school, while, further, their appointments would likely break the law. “The military’s mission is to kill people and break things — and Jags are trained to support that mission within the boundaries of military law. That’s not the same as immigration law. So why would we be using those attorneys, of all the lawyers out there, to decide the fate of families seeking refuge?” said Shawn VanDiver, a navy veteran and immigration advocate. “It’s just another way the [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration) is trying to sow fear and keep people from coming here.” According to [the White House](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/us/politics/military-lawyers-immigration-judges.html?partner=slack&smid=sl-share) and the Pentagon, military attorneys could double the ranks of immigration judges and tackle the overwhelming [backlog](https://www.justice.gov/eoir/pr/eoir-announces-significant-immigration-court-milestones) of 3.75m cases. But their use for civilian immigration enforcement would appear to violate [Congress’s laws](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/posse-comitatus-act-explained), namely the Posse Comitatus Act, and the executive branch’s own [regulations](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/32/516.4), experts say. In fact, in a resurfaced Reagan-era memo, even [Samuel Alito](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/samuel-alito), now one of the most conservative justices on the [US Supreme Court](https://www.theguardian.com/law/us-supreme-court), recognized that “if military lawyers functioning under the usual military chain-of-command were assigned on a part-time basis to perform civilian law enforcement functions along with their regularly assigned military duties”, it would pose “serious questions” legally. He strongly advised against such attorneys making a personal appearance in court. Similarly, Democrats on the Senate armed services committee have [said](https://apnews.com/article/pentagon-immigration-judges-senate-democrats-a34c89929ff098e423d49a3a5460a2aa) they’re “extremely disturbed” about the scheme and its impact on the Jags’ ability to do their real jobs, if they’re being diverted to the immigration courts. “I don’t quite understand what their end game is here,” said Margaret Stock, an immigration lawyer and retired Lt Col in the military police, US army reserve. “Unless they’re just trying to send a message that they’re militarizing justice in America, and somehow that’s gonna scare people.” The Guardian sought comment from the Pentagon, but was referred to the Department of Justice (DoJ), which did not respond to a similar request. The anticipated military assignments come after the DoJ’s executive office for immigration review (EOIR) – which houses the immigration courts – relaxed rules last month so that [any lawyer](https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/trump-appoints-military-lawyers-to-serve-as-immigration-judges/) can now serve as a temporary immigration judge. Officials say they no longer [believe](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-08-28/pdf/2025-16573.pdf) that restricting appointees to those “with a threshold level of immigration law experience serves EOIR’s interests”. VanDiver is alarmed. “You used to have to prove that you sort of had the chops to be a temporary immigration judge. They’ve taken away all of those requirements now, and it’s literally any attorney that Donald Trump decides, ‘eh, maybe that guy can be deciding somebody’s fate forever’,” VanDiver said. The service members who take on temporary immigration judgeships are expected to receive some training in immigration law, but not nearly enough to responsibly fill the roles, experts said. Immigrants and asylum seekers appear before the immigration courts for many reasons, including to make their case for [protection](https://asaptogether.org/en/faqs-immigration-court/), attain [lawful permanent residence](https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/904291/dl?inline=) or press [pause](https://www.ilrc.org/sites/default/files/2025-02/Seeking%20Administrative%20Closure%20and%20Termination.pdf) on their proceedings while they pursue other immigration relief. But generally, people are before a judge because they are fighting their removal to their home country – or a [third country](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/16/trump-administration-deports-five-migrants-to-eswatini-in-southern-africa) that will take them. The staggering backlog of cases waiting for adjudication has [ballooned](https://www.gao.gov/blog/u.s.-immigration-courts-see-significant-and-growing-backlog) since the first Trump administration, amid widespread foreign government repression, natural disasters, failing economies and other factors in other countries across the globe that have forced people to flee across international borders in search of safety and opportunity. The Biden administration regularly declared the US’s immigration system “broken” and, early on, tried [measures](https://nipnlg.org/sites/default/files/2023-02/2022_7Sept-FAQs-asylum-processing-rule.pdf) to relieve pressure on the court system, but those were largely abandoned later in his term. Still, advocates and some Democrats have frequently lamented the US Congress’s failure to pass legislation allowing longterm, law-abiding immigrants to more swiftly legalize their immigration status instead of languishing in the court backlog as their cases go stale. Meanwhile, immigration judges who had already been trained and were actively presiding over dockets have been forced off the bench in recent months, many seemingly because their judicial philosophies did not align with the administration’s priorities. In New York, where two judges were recently [terminated](https://www.thecity.nyc/2025/09/08/26-federal-plaza-terminations-trump-david-kim-carmen-maria-rey-caldas/), one of them had the highest rate in the city for granting asylum, while the other had been an outspoken [critic](https://x.com/RepStefanik/status/1515006926467252240/photo/2) of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). Seven adjudicators have been fired in [San Francisco](https://www.kqed.org/news/12055416/trump-fires-san-franciscos-top-immigration-judge), including the top immigration judge and the three with the highest asylum grant rates there. Similar [ousting](https://www.wbur.org/news/2025/07/23/chelmsford-immigration-judges-terminated) has played out around the country, including in [Chicago](https://abc7chicago.com/post/chicago-immigration-court-judges-terminated-donald-trump-administration-works-cut-down-massive-case-backlog/17434235/) and the [Boston area](https://www.wbur.org/news/2025/07/23/chelmsford-immigration-judges-terminated) — suggesting a focus on gutting the courts in Democratic states and [sanctuary cities](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/30/donald-trump-sanctuary-cities). More than a hundred immigration judges have left or been fired since Trump [returned](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donald-trump-inauguration) to the White House. “Even on Friday \[September 5\], they were firing qualified immigration judges who were sitting on the bench, and now they’re claiming that they need these Jags to come in and take their place, which doesn’t make any sense,” Stock said. “The only thing I can think is somehow they think the Jags are just gonna order everybody deported immediately. You know, they’re not going to pay any attention to the law. And so they’re trying to bring them in in some kind of measure to try to accelerate deportations.” After news broke that up to 600 military attorneys would be appointed as temporary immigration judges for 179-day, renewable assignments, Corey Lewandowski, a long-time Trump affiliate and current senior adviser to Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, [wrote](https://x.com/clewandowski_/status/1962950546652070269?s=46&t=bNhVJ5tChpMgDlYBM5RKtQ) on social media, “I see more deportations of illegal immigrants in the near future.” As the commander-in-chief, Trump holds outsized sway with the military, and observers believe that Jags making decisions contrary to the administration’s mass deportation campaign could risk damaging their careers – as temporary immigration judges and beyond. But VanDiver has heard from service members that on the topic of the immigration courts and other recent uses of the military for immigration enforcement “they don’t want to do this and they know that it’s wrong”. “They know that it’s not in keeping with our American values. They know that these missions are just the result of fever dreams of an American dictator,” he said. For those and other reasons, Jag corps members who take their oaths of office seriously may not be easily coerced into rubber stamping deportations, even as they’re put in an impossible situation, experts said. “People could be sent back to their home countries and face torture, persecution, death, imprisonment,” said Jeff Joseph, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “I would be very uncomfortable, with two weeks of training, to go in and make these kinds of decisions.” Nor will the service members necessarily make a dent in the overall backlog of immigration cases, given the likelihood of mass appeals challenging their potential mistakes, jurisdiction and authority. “All of these cases are going to be appealed for legal error and other issues if the judges are not trained,” Joseph said. “So you’re just shifting one backlog to another.” In the end, he said, the question is: “Are we really militarizing the immigration court?”

On 8 September, the supreme court’s conservative majority temporarily [lifted restrictions](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/08/trump-supreme-court-ice-immigration-california) on “roving” [immigration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/usimmigration) patrols across the Los Angeles area after a lower court found that federal agents were indiscriminately targeting people on the basis of race, language, employment or location. Immigration advocates warned that the court has “effectively legalized racial profiling” and opened the door to a broader unraveling of civil rights protections nationwide. Amid ramped up immigration enforcement in cities and communities across the US, and in light of the supreme court decision, some US citizens of color have decided to change the way they live their day to day lives for fear of being detained – carrying identification cards at all times or choosing not to speak languages other than English in public. If you are a person of color in the US, we’d like to hear how you feel about this ruling, and the possibility of being targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement ([Ice](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ice-us-immigration-and-customs-enforcement)) agents and patrols. Share your experience You can tell us how you feel about possibly being racially profiled and detained by filling in the form below. Your responses, which can be anonymous, are secure as the form is encrypted and only the Guardian has access to your contributions. We will only use the data you provide us for the purpose of the feature and we will delete any personal data when we no longer require it for this purpose. For true anonymity please use our [SecureDrop](https://www.theguardian.com/securedrop) service instead. _**If you’re having trouble using the form, click [here](https://guardiannewsandmedia.formstack.com/forms/ice_agents_and_racially_profiling_people_in_the_us). Read terms of service [here](https://www.theguardian.com/help/terms-of-service) and privacy policy [here](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy).**_

Dana Leigh Marks had the kind of career most immigration judges dream of. At 32, she won a precedent-setting [supreme court](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/us-supreme-court) case that made it easier to claim asylum in the US. In the decades that followed, she led the National Association of Immigration Judges to gain collective bargaining rights, fought to protect [immigration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/usimmigration) courts from political meddling and blazed a trail for a generation of female judges. Now retired at 71, she’s seen her share of political ups and downs over her 10 years as an immigration lawyer and 35 years on the bench. But nothing could have prepared her for what she’s seen the [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration) do to the court systems she once served. “I have seen my entire career destroyed by Trump in six months,” said Marks, reflecting on the state of her profession while sipping coffee near her home in Marin county, just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, where she spent much of her career. **“**I’m flat out terrified on all fronts.” Whip-smart, with a shock of white curls, Marks can speak more freely than a sitting immigration judge. And the picture she paints is alarming. Trump’s immigration crackdown has thrown the already backlogged courts into chaos. More than [100 immigration judges](https://www.aila.org/aila-executive-director-trump-administration-furthers-erodes-immigration-courts) have been fired since Trump was sworn in, including [roughly a third of the judges](https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/sf-judges-fired-rates-21020186.php) in San Francisco, home to one of the largest immigration courts in the country. People across the US are [routinely arrested outside their court hearings](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/sep/19/trump-immigration-cuba-asylum-seeker) by Ice agents “acting like the Gestapo”, Marks said. She described her former colleagues as under siege. “If I were an immigration practitioner now, I’d tell my clients that they have to act like they’re in a war zone,” she said. “Be prepared for any eventuality, because it is so random and so chaotic.” > Immigration courts are the canaries in the coalmine ... and what might happen to other court systems if we don’t stop it Dana Leigh Marks Despite the grim subject matter, Marks is full of wisecracks and seems to have her spirits permanently set on high – gushing at every passing dog and baby. “Immigration judges do death penalty cases in a traffic court setting” is among her oft-quoted zingers. She describes the frenetic work of an immigration judge as like “the guy behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz”: managing dockets, juggling courtroom tech and interpreters, typing verbatim notes while monitoring audio recording levels, then issuing immediate oral rulings with few clerks and barely any time to think. It’s an already frenzied job, and one she believes the [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration) is intentionally trying to make harder. Humor aside, her message for the public is a serious one: that the Trump administration is “attacking” immigration courts “on all fronts” in order to eliminate them entirely by proving they’re “dysfunctional”. There’s a backlog of [3.6m cases](https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IN12492) waiting to be adjudicated, and Marks believes the courts have been purposefully starved of resources. “I feel like the immigration courts are the canaries in the coalmine,” she said, “and what’s happening to them is an illustration of what might happen to other court systems if we don’t stop it.” A critical eye and an open mind ------------------------------- Marks’ interest in refugees and the immigrant experience comes from her own family’s lucky escape to America. “I was raised with an awareness of immigration to begin with,” said Marks. Her Jewish grandmother fled pogroms in Lithuania and was on one of the last boats to the US before the first world war severely restricted transatlantic migration. By the 1920s, the US enacted laws imposing strict quotas on refugees from eastern and southern Europe that almost completely shut down legal pathways for Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust. [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/28/dana-leigh-marks-immigration-judge-trump#img-2) A protest in the San Francisco Bay Area against Ice raids in June. Photograph: Santiago Mejia/AP Marks grew up in a diverse part of west Los Angeles**,** and spent a year in Chile after Salvador Allende’s election, where she learned Spanish and saw first-hand the dissonance between US media coverage of his presidency and how Chileans talked about politics around dinner tables. She learned to read and listen to many perspectives with a critical eye and an open mind. She wanted to be a social worker, but went to law school and nearly dropped out before falling in love with immigration law. “You met the world coming into your office,” she said, describing her years in private practice. In 1987, at the age of 32, she won the supreme court case known as [INS v Cardoza-Fonseca](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/480/421/), which expanded asylum eligibility by granting relief to those with a “well-founded fear” of persecution. The morning after that victory, she started her training to become a judge. Alongside her work in court, she led the National Association of Immigration Judges for nearly two decades and recruited half a dozen female judges to the bench. She prided herself on using compassion and humor to lower the tension in her courtroom: when people feel heard and judged fairly, they’re more likely to accept your decisions, she said, even when you rule against their claim. [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/28/dana-leigh-marks-immigration-judge-trump#img-3) Judge Dana Leigh Marks with Senator Dianne Feinstein and Judge Denise Slavin on a lobbying trip in 2014. Photograph: Courtesy: Dana Leigh Marks Marks retired in 2021 to become “Nana Dana” and care for her grandchild, but she remains deeply engaged in the field, speaking at conferences, advising the National Association of Immigration Judges, educating law students, officiating weddings and serving on the advisory board of the non-profit Justice Connection. What’s been playing out now in courtrooms, in policy memos and on the streets has chilling echoes of the authoritarian eras her Jewish ancestors fled. Among her more recent concerns is the push to [recruit hundreds of military lawyers](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/22/trump-administration-military-lawyers-immigration-judges) to serve as immigration judges. In late August, the Trump administration scrapped the rule requiring temporary immigration judges to have [spent a decade practicing immigration law](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/08/28/2025-16573/designation-of-temporary-immigration-judges) before qualifying for the bench. Days later, 600 military lawyers were cleared to fill vacant judge seats. All of this is “absolutely unprecedented”, said Marks. “I don’t want to slam military lawyers, but there is the concern that they’re being picked because there’s a perception that they will just follow orders.” Political interference in the court ----------------------------------- For Marks, political encroachment on immigration courts has been “a slow creep that now has gone to light speed”. A hallmark of American democracy is the separation of powers and an independent judiciary. But this has never been so for immigration courts, which are overseen by the Department of Justice, a part of the executive branch rather than the judicial branch. “Deep in my bones, I always felt the placement of the immigration court in the Department of Justice was wrong,” she said. “The boss of the prosecutor should not be the boss of the judge.” The court’s placement has led to political interference and underfunding by both parties in power, and Marks wanted to fight back. She spent decades advocating for the nation’s immigration court system to be moved out from under the political whims and meddling of the justice department and into an independent judiciary. In 2022, the congresswoman [Zoe Lofgren introduced a bill](https://lofgren.house.gov/media/press-releases/lofgren-introduces-landmark-legislation-reform-us-immigration-court-system) that would have created an independent immigration court system – but the bill ultimately died. Marks thinks reviving that bill should be a top priority for Democrats. She believes everyone across the political spectrum should be incensed by the current level of meddling with due process: from firing immigration judges, to pressuring them to toss out asylum cases so they can be reassigned as emergency deportations, to turning courthouses into traps where Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents scoop up immigrants to meet deportation quotas, and more. “Americans were raised with the golden principle that everybody deserves due process, and I really think the majority of Americans believe that, and that that’s what makes us exceptional in the world,” she said. “What kills me, as a lawyer, is that Trump turns everything on its head and blows through clearly established legal precedent as if it doesn’t exist. Fealty to precedent is the core of our legal system.” If there’s a silver lining for her, it’s that she predicts the administration’s embrace of chaos will ultimately backfire. For example, she thinks that dropping military reservists on to the bench for six-month stints is a recipe for failure. Rather than expediting the backlog of asylum cases, it will unleash chaos, “screw up the records” and “make appeals go wild”. “If you build by chaos, even if you’re right in what you construct,” she quipped, “it’s going to crumble.”

 For three [immigration judges](https://www.npr.org/2025/10/24/g-s1-95027/doj-hires-immigration-judges), the day took a similar turn. Kyra Lilien, who was hired in 2023, was presiding in a courtroom in Concord, Calif., in [July](https://www.npr.org/2025/07/14/nx-s1-5467343/immigration-judges-doj-trump-enforcement) when she paused the hearing of an immigrant seeking asylum to read an email. "I told them that we were not going to have a hearing because I had just been fired," Lilien said. Present in the court was a court interpreter and an attorney for the Department of Homeland Security. "They asked me if I was joking." Anam Petit, who was hired as an immigration judge in 2023 after a career in immigrant defense, was sitting on the bench in her courtroom in Virginia's Annandale Immigration Court in [September](https://www.npr.org/2025/09/23/nx-s1-5550915/trump-immigration-judges). It was her two-year anniversary in the position and she was between hearings when she got the email. "My voice was shaking. My hands were shaking. My mind was racing. And I gave the decision and I dismissed everyone without mentioning anything," Petit said. One decision that day was to deny asylum, and the other was a partial denial, each for a different member of one immigrant family, she recalled. Tania Nemer was hired as a judge at the Cleveland immigration court in 2023. She had about 30 or 40 immigrants, a DHS attorney and staff in her court one morning in February. She had just finished explaining rights and responsibilities to the group when her door opened and her manager asked her to come with him. She was later escorted out of the building. "I didn't know at all why I was being fired at the time. And I kept asking; no one had a reason," Nemer said. Nemer was one of the first immigration judges fired by the Trump administration after a slew of dismissals of leaders at the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the branch of the Justice Department that houses immigration courts. Later that month, [the administration fired 12 judges](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/08/nx-s1-5335523/trump-immigration-judges) — an entire incoming class that had just been trained and was about to take the bench. Those dismissals come as the administration has ramped up mass deportations of those without legal status, and [sometimes pointed to judges](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/29/g-s1-63187/trump-courts-immigration-judges-due-process) as obstacles in that effort. The pattern has been consistent. Every few months this year, [a new class of judges](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/08/nx-s1-5335523/trump-immigration-judges) gets termination notices in the middle of the day, often while they are in the middle of immigration court proceedings. The notices often target those who have reached the end of their [two-year probationary period](https://www.npr.org/2025/02/15/nx-s1-5298182/trumps-probationary-workers-federal), a trial period for federal workers before they are "converted" to permanent employees. It was previously common for these civil servants to be converted to permanent employees of the DOJ. "None of us have been given an explanation, we are in the dark, but we've been trying to ascertain patterns," Lilien said, the former judge in northern California. She wonders if her past experience representing immigrants got her fired, even though she also worked at DHS as an asylum officer. Her hunch has some correlation with the data. NPR has independently identified 70 immigration judges who received termination notices from the Trump administration between February and October. The number matches the tally kept by the union that represents immigration judges of judges who received termination letters, as well as NPR's past coverage of the terminations. The count does not include assistant chief immigration judges (ACIJ), who are courthouse supervisors and also have their own dockets. The union has counted 11 ACIJs terminated. An analysis of each of the 70 immigration judges' professional backgrounds found that judges with backgrounds defending immigrants, and no prior work history at DHS, made up about 44% of the firings — more than double the share of those who had only prior work history at DHS. NPR also analyzed the classes of judges onboarded between February 2023 and November 2024, who would have neared the ends of their probationary periods this year or are still in the probationary period. Of those judges, those who had prior DHS experience, including working as asylum officers and as attorneys for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, made up the largest share still on the bench. NPR reached out to the DOJ, EOIR and the White House for a comment on the firings and NPR's findings. The press staff at EOIR is furloughed due to the ongoing federal government shutdown, according to automatic email replies, though immigration courts are still operational. The White House referred questions to the DOJ. "DOJ doesn't 'target' or 'prioritize' immigration judges for any personnel decision one way or the other based on prior experience," a DOJ spokesperson told NPR in a statement. "DOJ continually evaluates all immigration judges, regardless of background, on factors such as conduct, impartiality/bias, adherence to the law, productivity/performance, and professionalism." The spokesperson added that, "pursuant to Article II of the Constitution, IJs (Immigration Judges) are inferior officers who are appointed and removed by the Attorney General." The spokesperson disputed the 70 count, saying the agency has terminated fewer than 55 judges, but was unable to provide more details. The agency's number is [inconsistent with other news reports](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/868/the-hand-that-rocks-the-gavel), NPR's prior reporting and the union. NPR reached out to reconcile the numbers. The DOJ spokesperson said staff have been furloughed and the Justice Department is not able to confirm their data.  Fired judges have been grasping at straws to understand why they were fired — some have filed Freedom of Information Act requests. Others have turned to wrongful termination complaints and lawsuits. Some worry they were targeted on the basis of protected classes, such as gender or race. "I fit the bill," said Nemer, who had represented immigrants prior to becoming an immigration judge. Nemer listed off characteristics cited in a lawsuit she has filed, arguing she was fired based on various protected classes. "It's hard to know without having the explanations of why judges were fired," said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan organization that focuses on immigration policy. "But the way the Trump administration is approaching immigration courts reflects a really high prioritization of immigration enforcement and \[the administration\] has really made deportations this whole-of-government effort." Immigration judges approve or deny a final order of deportation. Court officials have placed pressure on judges to move through their dockets faster, [including by reviewing asylum cases without hearings](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/g-s1-60430/trump-asylum-immigration). Each fired judge can leave behind thousands of cases, according to several interviews with fired judges throughout the year. Each case is an immigrant who has likely already waited years for their day in court, to make the case for why they should be allowed to stay in the U.S. Many of these cases have now been reassigned to other judges, at the bottom of their already years-long dockets. Immigrants whose cases were already in progress, or set to be reviewed soon, now have new dates as far out as 2029. There were 700 immigration judges at the start of the year. Over the past 10 months, [EOIR has lost more than 125 judges](https://www.npr.org/2025/08/13/nx-s1-5482883/trump-immigration-court-firings-chelmsford) to firings and voluntary resignations. Earlier this year, Republicans in Congress approved a spending bill that allocated over $3 billion to the Justice Department for immigration-related activities, including the hiring of more immigration judges, to address the backlog of [millions of cases at immigration court](https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1344791/dl?inline).  Probationary judges aren't the only ones who have been fired under the Trump administration. NPR tracked 12 fired judges who started prior to 2023. This means they were fired after their two-year probationary period. Some have been left wondering if their firings were retribution for the decisions they made on the bench. Shira Levine had worked for EOIR since 2021 before being fired in [September](https://www.npr.org/2025/09/23/nx-s1-5550915/trump-immigration-judges). She was presiding over a hearing for an immigrant who had already waited more than five years for a day in court when she got the email. "People looked surprised, but no one looked shocked," Levine said. "That's because, unfortunately, this by that point had become a pattern." She said she didn't expect to be removed since she had passed her two-year mark. She was never given a reason. Levine, like several others, received a standard email that they were being terminated pursuant to Article 2 of the Constitution, which gives the executive the power to dismiss federal employees. Levine thought she might have been dismissed because of her response to some recent Trump administration policies. During the summer months, immigration judges had already had to contend with an [outsized enforcement presence](https://www.npr.org/2025/08/25/nx-s1-5503595/immigration-court-new-york) in normally empty courtroom hallways. ICE attorneys — who argue on behalf of a government that an immigrant should be deported — started more regularly filing ["motions to dismiss](https://www.npr.org/2025/06/12/nx-s1-5409403/trump-immigration-courts-arrests)" cases. When a judge granted such a motion, migrants would be detained before leaving the building. Levine said such motions should be granted if there is a change in the individual migrant's case, not a change in immigration policy. "I was not told it was because of my decision to deny the motion to dismiss that I was fired," Levine said. "But I handed down a decision that contravened what they apparently wanted the judges to do." Others, [like Ila Deiss](https://www.npr.org/2025/07/30/nx-s1-5476311/trump-fired-workers-justice-department) or Emmett Soper, who had been immigration judges since 2017 and 2016, served as career officials at the DOJ for nearly two decades. Soper had been with EOIR since graduating law school in a variety of other roles. He doesn't know if his firing had anything to do with past policy work under the Biden administration's EOIR director or his handling of cases as a judge. As the Trump administration brings in new people to the bench, he has concerns over the loss of experienced judges. "You have to be able to manage your courtroom and you have to make very difficult, sometimes life-or-death decisions, with the person whose life is going to be affected and the family members sometimes right in front of you," Soper said. "It's not something that you pick up right away. And with all of these judges — many of whom are very experienced — being fired, the agency is losing something that will take a long time to get back, if they ever can."  The agency is prioritizing other judges to hire**.** The Trump administration has moved to bring back immigration judges it sees as unfairly fired by the Biden administration. The Justice Department, in [a February memo](https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1391456/dl?inline), said that it cannot be confident the Biden administration was ethical and lawful in how it dismissed immigration judges and other adjudicators. A handful of judges in 2022 had not been converted to permanent employment, sparking GOP outrage over what lawmakers saw as political interference. Earlier this year, Matthew O'Brien and David White, two of those judges let go under President Joe Biden, were reinstated at immigration courts in Virginia. [O'Brien was brought back to a managerial position](https://www.npr.org/2025/06/06/nx-s1-5409057/trump-immigration-judge-rehiring), as NPR previously reported — though he is no longer with EOIR. White is a judge at the Falls Church court. The Justice Department appointed a new director of EOIR, [Daren Margolin](https://www.justice.gov/eoir/staff-profile/director), in October. Margolin has previous experience as the assistant chief immigration judge, or courthouse supervisor, throughout multiple courts in California, and a background as a military and DHS lawyer. He had been fired from a command position at a Marine base for [negligently firing a gun](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/us/politics/trump-immigration-courts.html) and had left EOIR in 2024 before returning to lead the agency. Then the DOJ last month [announced its first class of 2025](https://www.npr.org/2025/10/24/g-s1-95027/doj-hires-immigration-judges), which included 25 temporary judges [who are military lawyers](https://www.npr.org/2025/09/02/g-s1-86691/military-lawyers-immigration-judges-jag). "EOIR is restoring its integrity as a preeminent administrative adjudicatory agency," the [announcement states](https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1415981/dl?inline). "These new immigration judges are joining an immigration judge corps that is committed to upholding the rule of law." The incoming class of permanent judges comprises mostly those with a background in federal government work, including EOIR itself and the Department of Homeland Security. Their previous jobs included training Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agents, serving as asylum officers and working for ICE's legal arm. One judge was originally going to take the bench at the start of the year, but was among the [initial class of judges fired](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/08/nx-s1-5335523/trump-immigration-judges) before they could start. None of the incoming judges appear to have previously worked in the field of immigrant defense based on EOIR's announcement. ### Immigration judges' backgrounds vary over time In recent years, immigration judges' backgrounds have varied. Many came to the position after several years working for ICE's legal branch. Others became judges after working for immigrant defense nonprofits or in private practice. Some have no immigration law experience, which was previously a requirement for temporary judges but not for permanent ones. When immigration courts were first established, it was more common for immigration judges to have an enforcement background, said Dana Leigh Marks, a former immigration judge and immigration attorney who litigated [landmark immigration cases before the Supreme Court](https://www.sfbar.org/sfam/q3-2022-unpacking-the-legacy-of-judge-dana-leigh-marks/). Marks joined the court in 1987, when courts were still under the former Immigration and Naturalization Service branch of the DOJ. "Frankly, I was one of the individuals who was hired to show that it wasn't just a career path of prosecution that led you to be eligible to be an immigration judge," Marks said. That push for professional diversification carried through the Biden administration. That administration selected as immigration judges not just immigration attorneys, but also criminal defense attorneys, other administrative judges across the federal government, and those with military experience, as it sought to diversify the perspectives of those interpreting the complicated set of immigration laws. Marks said that the president and his cabinet will continue to affect personnel decisions as long as these courts stay in the executive branch. "It's common sense that the boss of the prosecutor should not be the boss of the judge," Marks said, recalling the fight to keep immigration courts separate from immigration enforcement when DHS was created in 2002. Enforcement, which is primarily ICE, was separated from the DOJ. _—NPR's Rahul Mukherjee contributed to data analysis for this story._