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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Throughout his second term, President Trump has been blocked over and over by federal courts, except, that is, for a little-known court system that oversees immigration.
Today, my colleague, Nicholas Nehemas, brings us the inside story of how the president has systematically pressured the judges in that system to carry out his agenda and speaks with one of those judges about the fallout. It's Tuesday, June 23rd. Nick, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
Nick, talk for a moment about why in this moment you decided to spend so much time reporting on the judges of the United States immigration court system.
Well, I think that when most Americans think about President Trump's immigration crackdown, they picture the shock and awe campaign that dominated the headlines for months. The images of federal agents being sent into U.S. cities to do mass raids and arrest as many immigrants as possible.
Right. Generated a huge amount of outrage, consumed the country for weeks.
Exactly. But what we found is that while that was sucking up most of the attention, the administration was also engaged in a quieter, much more meticulous overhaul of a hugely consequential part of the immigration system. And that's the immigration court system. Hmm. That's basically the process that decides an immigrant's fate and can order them removed from the country.
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Chapter 2: What pressures did President Trump place on immigration judges?
Immigration judges are appointed by the attorney general and they can be fired by the attorney general. And that's just a function of how this system was initially created in the 80s. And what it also means is that immigration judges have a lot less freedom to make their decisions based just on the law. Because?
Because they ultimately have to follow the policy that's being put forward by the administration. So they have to obey immigration laws, yes, but the way they interpret those laws has to follow the administration's policies.
Right. You're saying there's a real tension there.
Totally. And so that can mean, depending on who's in power, they can interpret the immigration laws more strictly or more generously, more loosely. And previous presidents have exerted a lot of influence over this system. But still, no administration has done what President Trump is doing in imposing his will on the immigration courts. It's really been unprecedented.
Hmm. Well, talk about that. What did you find in your reporting about how exactly Trump 2.0 has overhauled this federal immigration court system?
So we talked to dozens of judges, immigration attorneys, administration officials, asylum seekers, reviewed data. on millions of cases, and we found that the administration put really systematic pressure on judges to deport more people and do it faster. They have really tried to turn this court into a deportation assembly line.
And judges right now are granting asylum in fewer than 10% of cases, which is the lowest it's ever been for the 20 years we could examine data for.
And just how much has this changed the lives and the work of the judges who are in the middle of the system?
So this has completely upended the way judges operate in their courtrooms. Now, unfortunately, the judges can't talk to us on the record because they're employees of the Justice Department. But we did find one judge who, because of her unique situation, was able to speak with us on the record and put her experiences out there. Hi, Holly.
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Chapter 3: How does the immigration court system function differently from criminal courts?
I spend a lot of my time reporting on GLP-1 medications. People call them weight loss drugs. They are doing so much more in the body, and there's a lot of hope pinned on them. I am spending part of truly every single workday making sure that I am up to date on the latest science. I really want to make sure that I am talking to the leading researchers, keeping an eye on trial results,
and that I'm talking to people who are on these medications to learn more from them, to translate the really messy and murky and shifting science into a way that people can understand. It's really important to have evidence-based answers to some of the questions that people have, especially about something as vital as a medication they're taking.
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So, Nick, tell us about these firings and about how Judge DeAndre experiences them.
The firing started with the people at the top of the courts.
Well, the first firings were of the higher-ups. And I think most of the people at that time were kind of like, well, it's the director and the chief judge. Like, that's kind of your highest people in the organization. It's not really unusual for a president to come in.
Which wasn't totally unexpected with a new administration coming in.
But I think judges started to get scared when Tanya Niemer was fired.
But then a rank-and-file judge got fired.
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Chapter 4: What challenges do immigration judges face under the Trump administration?
That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
This week on the Book Review Podcast, we look back at the culture wars of the 80s and 90s with author Isaac Butler.
Culture wars are going to flare up all the time because the arts are how we decide who we are. That's the terrain in which the soul of a nation is really explored and developed.
Listen to the Book Review wherever you get your podcasts.