How Trump Purged Immigration Judges to Speed Up Deportations
"Judges are ordering an unprecedented number of people deported after coming under significant pressure from the administration to do so or risk losing their jobs.
60% asylum grant rate
Immigration judges can still grant bond hearings to people who entered the country legally, such as those who overstayed visas.
Teresa Riley, the chief immigration judge, has received daily reports about bond rulings, according to a Justice Department official. Her office has sometimes emailed judges asking for an explanation about their decisions to grant bond, three people said. Ms. Riley declined to comment.
One current judge said the “pressure to deny bond is overt.” The judge said that there was a requirement to inform a supervisor every time bond was granted, underscoring how closely the administration was monitoring decisions.
Shahrokh Rahimi, 53, has spent the last nine months in immigration detention in Texas under Mr. Trump’s new mandatory detention policy. Mr. Rahimi entered the country illegally in 2003. In 2010, an immigration judge ordered him deported, but also prohibited the government from sending him back to his native Iran, saying he would be tortured or persecuted there.
He was allowed to live in the United States under supervised release, if he checked in regularly with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and stayed out of trouble. He is married to a U.S. citizen, has a 12-year-old American-born daughter and does not have a criminal record beyond a speeding ticket, court filings show.
But during Mr. Trump’s enforcement crackdown last summer, ICE revoked Mr. Rahimi’s release and arrested him. An immigration judge denied him bond.
If he wants to continue his fight for legal status in the United States, he could spend months or even years in immigration detention — a prospect that has convinced many others in his position to give up.
Mr. Rahimi is not ready to make that choice, and not just because he fears imprisonment or worse in Iran.
“My wife is from here,” Mr. Rahimi said. “My daughter has a future in this country.”
About the Data
Reporters analyzed immigration court data published by the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (E.O.I.R.). The reporters used records from 2009, which The Times determined was the first full year with reliable records, through February 2026, the most recent month of data available.
The analyses focus on removal proceedings, which make up 97 percent of all cases initiated since 2009. Asylum grant rates in the analysis refer to the proportion of asylum applications, among completed removal proceedings, that were granted. Because E.O.I.R. data do not include the dates of asylum application decisions, the analyses use a removal proceeding’s completion date as a proxy.
The Times also examined changes in case characteristics over time, such as the immigrants’ date of entry into the United States, their nationality and their detention status. The Times found that broad declines in asylum grant rates persisted even after adjusting for these factors.
Reporters identified fired, newly hired and temporary judges through interviews, public rosters of judges and Department of Justice press releases.
Christopher Flavelle and Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting. Research was contributed by Kirsten Noyes, Emily Powell, Kitty Bennett and Georgia Gee."
No comments:
Post a Comment