Fox News Digital reported last week that many judges appointed in the latter days of the Trump administration, and whose two-year probationary periods are now up, are being withdrawn -- with at least one judge stating it is because they are out of step with the administration’s immigration opinions.
Typically, the vast majority are moved to a non-probationary position. The DOJ did not mention how many have recently been let go at the end of their probationary periods. A spokesperson for the DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review said to Fox News Digital last week that it does not comment on personnel matters.
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There are 590 sitting immigration judges, and the DOJ states decisions related to career civil service employees, who include immigration judges, are based only on performance, and the administration they were hired by plays no part in decision-making.
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Yet now, the National Association of Immigration Review, in a letter to the EOIR obtained by Fox, is asking for reviews of the actions related to three judges who were recently let go "to ensure that they were taken in full compliance with the law and that the probationary evaluation processes comport with fundamental fairness and sound labor relations."
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The union states that the letters served to the judges provide no explanation for the termination besides "performance and/or conduct," leaving judges to guess as to their reasons for removal. The letter was first reported by The Washington Times.
It is unclear how many immigration judges appointed at the back end of the Trump administration and whose probation ended this year were let go, yet Fox is told that the number is at least five; different estimates have put that number higher.
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One ousted judge, Matthew O’Brien, said to Fox News Digital last week that he thought the appointees have been removed because of their backgrounds as Trump appointees or links to conservatives causes, and further accused an opaque complaints' system that allowed aggrieved immigration lawyers to file complaints.
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"Some aggrieved attorney who doesn't like the decision that they got in the case that might not have had any merit to begin with can file a complaint complaining about the judge and then nothing happens except harassment of the judge," O'Brien, who had beforehand worked for the hawkish Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), announced. "So it requires the judges to write a response … and then it goes into a black hole, and nobody tells anyone anything except the complaining attorneys. So they don't give the judges a written decision on it. They don't talk to the judges and tell them what happened."
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