Nicholas Nehamas

And judges clearly take that as a sign that they could be disciplined if they rule against the government.

Suddenly, it felt like she and her colleagues had targets on their back where they would lose their jobs unless they did what the administration wanted, which was to deport more and more people.

And our data analysis found that the firings followed a pattern.

Many of these judges had been appointed by Democrats.

Many had previously worked as immigration attorneys representing immigrants in immigration court.

Many had higher rates of granting asylum than judges who kept their jobs.

Well, yeah, and that's exactly what the Trump administration says.

They believe these judges were essentially letting too many immigrants stay in the country, and they accused them of not following immigration law as it was written.

And to be clear, the Biden administration also fired some immigration judges, about six or so during his presidency.

Far fewer.

And to Judge DeAndre, these firings represent a new level of pressure being put on immigration judges that she's just never seen before.

You know, in previous administrations, you described a soft pressure that judges felt.

Yeah.

Is the pressure in Trump too soft or is it something else?

Administration officials are not being subtle about what they want.

These judges already work very quickly, but the pressure to move even faster grows and grows and grows.

The administration starts to set caseloads that Judge DeAndre says are unrealistic.

So if immigration judges are hearing cases on the bench all day, when do you write your decisions and do that kind of stuff?

And what my colleagues have found in some of their follow-up reporting is that the administration is actually sometimes putting as many as 100 hearings on a judge's calendar per day.

Which is not practical.