Nicholas Nehamas

They work for the attorney general and they can be fired.

And so the Trump administration has used that lever of pressure.

They also sent out memos to judges.

One of the most prominent basically said, hey, it's come to our attention that some of you are, quote, exhibiting bias in favor of aliens and against the government.

And the message was, you know, we're not telling you how to rule, but we think you're biased in favor of immigrants.

And so judges took a pretty clear message from that, that they were supposed to rule more in favor of the government.

Every president tries to bring the immigration courts in line with their own policies, but no president has moved as quickly or as comprehensively as Trump to fire so many judges, to change so many policies, and to really fundamentally transform how the courts work.

The consequences have been fast and dramatic.

We've seen the asylum rate drop to a record low.

We've seen the number of deportation orders soar to a record high.

We've seen more people locked up in detention centers and even more people deciding to give up their cases and accept being removed from the country rather than keep fighting from behind bars.