Many commentators have criticized the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 29 ruling in Trump v. Slaughter for dismantling protections that had historically insulated independent agencies from direct presidential control. The decision allows the president to remove principal officers in almost any federal agency at will. As critics had feared, within 10 days, President Donald Trump relied on the decision to remove the three remaining members of the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission, including two Democrats who were dismissed and a Republican who was allowed to resign.
Although Slaughter may have emboldened the executive branch, the Trump administration had already begun exercising this type of unfettered executive control in another system: the U.S. immigration courts.
Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump’s administration has worked to transform the immigration courts in pursuit of its deportation objectives. One of us, Meg Satterthwaite, as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, has received data and information demonstrating three interconnected strategies: the arbitrary removal of at least 130 immigration judges, the replacement of dismissed judges with newly recruited adjudicators dubbed “deportation judges” and with temporary judges drawn from the ranks of military lawyers, and the obstruction of meaningful, individualized adjudication by subjecting judges to threats of discipline and difficult working conditions if they don’t contribute to the administration’s deportation-heavy policy. Altogether, these strategies have created a climate of fear among judges akin to that familiar to peers in authoritarian judicial systems elsewhere in the world.
Patterns in other countries suggest these strategies – once they are carried out and refined – may be used far beyond the immigration courts, perhaps by adjudicators who handle veteran’s benefits, patents, or other issues. Indeed, these changes appear to be part of an effort to transform the courts from an institution aiming to conduct individualized merits review of immigration cases to an enforcement agency carrying out the deportation policy of the executive branch. One of us, Satterthwaite, acting as Special Rapporteur, sent a formal communication, not yet public, to the U.S. government outlining these and other concerns under international human rights law.
Unique Structure of U.S. Immigration Courts
Immigration judges decide cases involving some of the most consequential issues, including whether a person should be protected from being returned to a country where they would be at risk of persecution, torture or other irreparable harm. The structure and independence of the courts in which these judges serve therefore matters a great deal.
Yet, unlike ordinary federal and state courts, U.S. immigration courts are housed not under the judicial branch but rather in the executive branch. The immigration courts are two tiered: trial-level courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). Together, they are managed by an agency within the Department of Justice (DOJ) called the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).
The Trump administration was able to reshape this system so rapidly and extensively because the system’s design leaves immigration adjudication vulnerable to undue influence by the executive branch. U.S. immigration courts are largely creatures of federal regulation. To be clear, immigration judges are authorized by statute to “conduct proceedings for deciding the inadmissibility or deportability of an alien.” Federal statute also provides the Attorney General (AG) broad authority to implement the Immigration and Nationality Act. However, it is under that authority where the AG and DOJ promulgated the principal regulations governing immigration judges and the BIA – e.g., 8 C.F.R. §§ 1003.1, 1003.9, 1003.10.
This legal framework, composed of federal regulations, gives the AG immense authority over the courts. After all, the AG and DOJ can add, delete, and modify federal regulations. Currently, the AG appoints immigration judges directly, decides whether probationary judges receive permanent appointments, and appoints key EOIR and court leadership either directly or indirectly. That leadership heavily influences or controls judges’ dockets, conducts judges’ training, and evaluates judges’ performance. Immigration judges therefore operate within a rigid hierarchy in the executive branch that controls many of the conditions under which they adjudicate.
The same design also places both prosecution and adjudication within the executive branch. Attorneys from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) prosecute deportation cases, while immigration judges employed by the DOJ decide them. The executive branch, therefore, brings the case and controls the institution that adjudicates it.
Until recently, however, immigration judges enjoyed an important, albeit imperfect, level of civil service protection, allowing them to make principled, “independent” decisions in politicized environments, as federal regulations have required. Permanent immigration judges traditionally could be removed only “for such cause as will promote the efficiency of the service.”
The Trump administration substantially weakened the practical force of that protection by removing the sole Democratic member of the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, the agency responsible for adjudicating federal employment disputes. The Board later ruled in Jackler and Jaroch Consolidation v. Department of Justice that the Trump administration could remove immigration judges at will. (And one day after the Slaughter decision, the Supreme Court denied that Democratic Board member’s petition for review.)
Removing Immigration Judges
With this built-in ability to influence the U.S. immigration court system, the Trump administration began making significant personnel changes from the very beginning of its second term, primarily removing – arbitrarily – immigration judges and EOIR leadership.
Data received by this Special Rapporteur provide a timeline illustrating the speed and scale of these personnel changes:
- On the day of Trump’s second inauguration, four senior career officials at the EOIR were summarily dismissed. They included the chief immigration judge, EOIR’s acting director, its general counsel, and its head of policy.
- In February 2025, 32 immigration judges, including seven assistant chief immigration judges (ACIJs) and nine appellate immigration judges (who sat on the BIA), were reportedly terminated.
- In April 2025, eight immigration judges were reportedly terminated, all of whom were part of a cohort of immigration judges hired in April 2023. They were reportedly terminated just before completing their probationary periods.
- In May 2025, one immigration judge was reportedly terminated.
- In June 2025, one ACIJ was reportedly terminated.
- In July 2025, 22 immigration judges, including two ACIJs, were reportedly terminated, 17 of whom were part of the July 2023 cohort of immigration judges. The 17 judges were reportedly terminated just before completing their probationary periods.
- In August 2025, three immigration judges were reportedly terminated.
- In September 2025, 26 immigration judges were reportedly terminated, one of whom was an ACIJ.
- In November 2025, eight immigration judges were reportedly terminated.
- In December 2025, 12 immigration judges were reportedly terminated, two of whom were ACIJs.
- In January 2026, one immigration judge was reportedly terminated.
- In February 2026, one immigration judge was reportedly terminated.
- In April 2026, six immigration judges were reportedly terminated.
- In May 2026, five immigration judges were reportedly terminated.
- In June 2026, three immigration judges were reportedly terminated.
Connecting the Data Dots
In total, the data show that, between January 2025 and June 2026, the administration terminated arbitrarily at least 130 immigration judges, consisting of at least 108 trial-level immigration judges, 13 ACIJs, and nine appellate immigration judges. Separately, at least 43 immigration judges and three ACIJs entered the administration’s deferred-resignation program (familiar as the “Fork in the Road” offer by the Department of Government Efficiency – DOGE). For context, at least 721 immigration judges were serving on the bench the day before Trump took office.
Fired judges generally received an afternoon Friday email stating “pursuant to Article II of the Constitution, the Attorney General has decided to remove you from your position as an excepted service Immigration Judge with the United States Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review.” According to testimonies this Special Rapporteur’s office collected, the letters gave no individualized explanation and identified no finding of misconduct or deficient performance.
This U.N. Special Rapporteur’s office was able to confirm at least four trends in these removals.
- Immigration judges with asylum grant rates above the national average and/or above their specific court’s average were disproportionately removed. Among the 78 removed probationary and permanent judges for whom there is publicly available asylum data, 68 percent had grant rates exceeding both the national and their specific court’s averages. Furthermore, 83 percent of these judges surpassed at least one of those benchmark averages.
- Judges with professional experience in immigrant defense, legal aid, or humanitarian advocacy were disproportionately removed.
- Judges appointed by the previous administration were disproportionately affected.
- Probationary judges were dismissed in significant numbers shortly before completing their probationary periods.
Judges hired in the April and July 2023 cohorts particularly illustrate how these patterns intersected. Of the 53 judges appointed in those two cohorts, 26 were terminated. Asylum data was available for 24 of the terminated judges: 14 had grant rates above both the national average and their own court’s average, while 18 exceeded at least one of those benchmarks. By contrast, among the 20 judges from the same cohorts who remained on the bench, 15 had grant rates below both benchmarks.
The professional background trend followed a similar pattern: 16 of the 26 terminated judges had prior experience in immigrant defense, legal aid, or pro bono advocacy. In contrast, of the 20 judges who remain on the bench, only seven judges have immigrant defense backgrounds. Most of these seven judges had either higher than average asylum denial rates or had other DHS or prosecutorial experience. Because all members of these cohorts were appointed by the previous administration and many were removed shortly before the end of probation, the data also reinforces the apparent concentration of removals among prior-administration appointees and probationary judges.
The number of terminations varied by the states where the immigration judges were located, according to the data. California and New York had the highest numbers of removals: more than 30 and 20 terminations, respectively. At least 10 judges were removed in each of the states of Massachusetts and Texas. This reduction correlated with several immigration courts ceasing operations. For example, the San Francisco Immigration Court, which previously had 21 judges, has been completely shut down. Furthermore, two immigration courts (Oakdale, Louisiana, and Aurora, Illinois) no longer have full-time judges, and 12 immigration courts across nine states have lost more than half of their immigration judges.
Recruiting “Deportation Judges”
The data suggest that the administration’s objective with its overhaul was not merely to remove sitting judges. It appears to have been aimed at reshaping and capturing the courts by recruiting replacements willing to carry out its deportation agenda.
In November 2025, after terminating more than 80 adjudicators without meaningful explanation, the DOJ and DHS launched a new recruitment campaign. Rather than using the statutory title “immigration judge,” the campaign invites candidates to apply to be “a deportation judge.” The campaign advertises bonus incentives of as much as 25 percent of base pay for positions in specific cities. The campaign appears to have produced substantial hiring: in May 2026, the DOJ announced the swearing-in of at least 77 new immigration judges.
The administration also is seeking to fill vacancies with military lawyers. In August 2025, the Department of Defense authorized up to 600 military lawyers to serve renewable six-month terms as temporary immigration judges, reportedly including through involuntary mobilization.
This Special Rapporteur’s office also received information that suggested the training for these judges is substantially problematic. One whistleblower’s testimony we received a copy of that had been given to Congress said that “military members [who] are being assigned to this program [receive] completely inadequate and highly biased training, being told to adjudicate cases in a manner that is not consistent with the law, and threatened with removal if they do not achieve the Trump Administration’s stated goal of denying asylum or other relief in almost all cases.”
The whistleblower also described several instances in which executive branch officials allegedly stated that they were “watching new judges very carefully” and warned that judges who failed to meet “expectations” would likely be “bid farewell.” The training also reportedly emphasizes how rarely asylum should be granted, suggesting that relief should be reserved for cases such as “Alexei Navalny” or “[m]aybe if you were Jewish and escaping Nazi Germany in 1943.”
Pressure on Judges
Although federal regulations require immigration judges to exercise “independent judgment and discretion,” EOIR leadership and the Trump administration have sought to pressure judges to move cases faster and limit individualized review, practices that favor deportations.
EOIR leadership, for instance, have issued more than 50 policy memoranda addressing judicial conduct, performance, and case management. Several such memoranda warned that judges could face scrutiny or discipline because of their adjudicative records, case management decisions, or perceived “bias” against DHS. Policy Memorandum 25-33, for example, stated that judges who showed “bias or hostility” toward a party, particularly DHS, could face corrective or disciplinary action or “should consider transitioning to alternate career paths.”
EOIR leadership also issued procedural guidance that urged judges to resolve removal cases more quickly. One guidance encouraged judges to reject incomplete asylum applications without a full hearing rather than allowing applicants an opportunity to cure the deficiencies, as judges were free to do before. Some judges also received instructions to issue removal orders in absentia when respondents failed to appear. Both such orders effectively close cases early before a full hearing on the merits, allowing DHS to otherwise deport the foreign national. Because the EOIR issued these communications during a period of widespread unexplained removals, many judges viewed them as messages to increase both the pace of cases and deportation orders.
Reports also show expanded use of “mega” master calendar hearings. In such a hearing, a judge could be required to hear 60 to 100 respondents in a single half-day session, even if they do not have legal representation. One recent study found that the number of these hearings scheduled in May, for example, grew more than tenfold since 2020, from 51 to 544. It also found that, between January and May 2026, the number of sessions per month rose from 466 to 570, which had a corresponding increase in the number of respondents from about 37,300 to nearly 50,000, a 34 percent increase in five months. Many groups have argued that such a practice could increase the number of in absentia cases, thereby facilitating the administration’s goal of mass deportations.
Information we received also indicates obstructions to judges’ control over scheduling. In some courts, the computer system blocked staff from setting hearings more than six months in advance. This restriction limited judges’ ability to grant continuances to give the immigrants before them appropriate time needed to secure counsel, collect evidence, or otherwise ensure a fair hearing. International standards recognize that judicial administration should be under judicial control, since changes to court procedures can substantially impact cases and their outcomes.
Altogether, these measures promote rapid case closure that ends in deportation while constraining the careful, individualized adjudication that removal proceedings and international law require.
The Need for Reform
Through all these measures, the Trump administration has severely weakened and effectively captured the U.S. immigration court system. It replaced EOIR leadership and at least130 immigration judges, depleted courts across the country, recruited replacements that it is dubbing “deportation judges,” and assigned military lawyers to short, renewable terms. The Trump administration also is seeking to obstruct individualized adjudication of cases through threats of disciplinary action for alleged “bias,” and through guidance, instructions, or working conditions that lead to pretermission of cases or in absentia deportation orders.
These measures are symptoms of a deeper structural failure. They expose the U.S. immigration court system’s lack of institutional independence and leave judges vulnerable to political pressure from the same executive branch that prosecutes deportation cases. The United States must fundamentally redesign a court structure capable of delivering competent, independent, and impartial adjudication.
The administration’s successful capture of the immigration court system should stand as a grave warning. According to a 2018 study, the United States has more than 1,931 administrative law judges (“ALJ”) and 10,831 non-ALJ adjudicators in federal agencies. These adjudicators decide consequential matters involving veterans’ benefits, patents, labor rights, and other interests that profoundly affect individual lives. This is not to mention the 860+ district, appellate, and other federal judges who serve under Article III of the Constitution. Although Article III judges are protected by life tenure and salary protections, even they rely on the executive branch for security, building administration, and more.
Two lessons follow from the capture of the immigration courts. First, the United States must examine whether every federal adjudicatory system contains safeguards strong enough to withstand determined political interference. This includes ensuring that Article III judges themselves control their own security and infrastructure. A good place to start would be to consider passing legislation such as the MARSHALS Act.
Second, Congress must address the immigration courts’ deeply flawed regulatory structure. Exercising its constitutional authority, Congress should legislate to establish an immigration court system that possesses genuine institutional independence and can provide impartial, individualized adjudication. There are multiple possible avenues forward; some scholars have argued for Article III courts dedicated to handling immigration cases. Others, such as the National Association of Immigration Judges and some lawmakers, have called for creation of immigration courts under Congress’ Article I authorities with greater guarantees of independence.
