Fired immigration judge: 'I fear due process is being violated'

An immigration judge fired by the Trump administration said she fears the court system is being set up to fail. It comes as the union representing the judges said close to 15% of the judges have accepted buyouts, not been renewed or been fired by the Trump administration. What You Need To Know The union for immigration judges reports the number of judges who have left or been fired since the beginning of the Trump administration is in excess of 100 New money allocated for immigration funding shows a disparity between an increase in enforcement compared to the courts One former judge says she believes the Trump administration is trying to pressure judges to rule in certain ways “It’s been pretty brutal since January and the dark times are still continuing,” said Jennifer Peyton, who was the supervisory judge for Chicago's immigration courts until this summer. She got an email on July 3 — while she was on vacation — informing her she had been let go. The Department of Justice told NY1 it does not discuss personnel matters. “I don’t know why I was fired. But I do know why I wasn’t fired," she said during a Zoom interview with NY1. "I wasn’t fired for cause.” Peyton said she is considering legal action now. In September 2024, the total number of immigration judges was 735, according to the federal government. A chart that a Department of Justice spokesperson referred to NY1 indicates this summer, there were 685 judges. But that number may actually be significantly lower. There are only 608 judges with active online hearing rooms, which Peyton said is a requirement for judges. A spokesperson for the National Association of Immigration Judges said the union has tracked more than 100 who have left or been let go since President Donald Trump’s inauguration. “If you have a 3.8 million backlog [in immigration cases nationwide] and you’re trying to get these cases heard fairly, judiciously and uniformly, should you fire 100 judges since January?” asked Peyton, rhetorically. Another former immigration judge in the northeast who was fired this year told NY1 in a phone call that her backlog of hearings in recent months had gone from one month long to as far as 2027. And that’s not bad when compared to others whose backlogs reach into the 2030s. According to a breakdown from the American Immigration Council, the recently passed federal budget bill provides $170 billion in additional funding to immigration and border enforcement. Funding for detention capacity, border wall and checkpoint upgrades, and enforcement and removal account for $126.5 billion, or about 75% of that new funding. For prosecutions of noncitizens, including for immigration judges, it is $3.3 billion, or just under 2% of the new money allocated. “What does that tell you about where our country is heading and the importance that this administration places on the judges hearing these applications?” Peyton asked. That’s part of the problem. The number of pending immigration cases has not helped either. Federal data collected by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse — an organization that keeps data on the federal government's enforcement activities — indicates backlog has been increasing substantially each of the last three presidents. It went from just over 344,230 to 516,031 during President Barack Obama’s second term. It rose to 1,262,765 at the end of the first Trump administration and up to 3,716,106 cases by the end of Joe Biden’s presidency. So a bigger backlog, fewer judges and more enforcement is making it harder in the courts, according to former judges NY1 has consulted with. And while the budget bill allows for the number of judges to go up to 800, it’s not clear how quickly judges will be hired. It's a process that can take months, even a year, to hire an immigration judge, according to a third former judge, who recently left, that NY1 spoke with. The Department of Justice declined to comment on the timeline to hire new judges, but there are openings listed online for immigration judges. Peyton said she fears that the courts are being set up to fail. “I fear due process is being violated and that justice is being kicked to the curb,” she said. She said part of that comes from what she described as a pressure campaign from the Trump administration on specific cases. NY1’s cameras have documented the current deportation process at the federal courthouse at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan. It’s where undocumented people, at times, have their immigration cases dismissed only to be taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody inside the courthouse, a legal move called expedited removal. It's a legal procedure being used by the Trump administration to detain people who illegally entered the United States within the past two years. One immigration lawyer told NY1 it nearly guarantees they end up deported. Peyton pointed to a letter she received in May which told judges that "motions to dismiss may be made orally and decided from the bench" and that "a 10-day response period is not required." “I felt the pressure that this was an email using the words 'may' but really felt like a ‘should,’” Peyton said. But not all judges felt the pressure from that letter. The fired immigration judge who ruled on cases in the northeast told NY1 that she never felt compelled from the Trump administration to dismiss cases to trigger the expedited removal process. The Department of Justice declined to answer NY1’s question about this email. Peyton said the fact that so many judges have been let go since January is in the back of the minds of many of the judges that reported to her in Chicago. "There’s a definite pressure on the neck to comply with any directive or email that you have received because you want to keep your job," she said. Peyton spoke out in the weeks after her firing about her concerns. But NY1 asked why not address this before? She said she wanted to keep what she called her dream job. “I still felt I was doing the right thing every day I went into work and I applied the law to the facts in front of me and I adjudicated those cases on the merits,” she said. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.