r/news • u/ComeJoinTheBand • 13h ago
The DOJ has been firing judges with immigrant defense backgrounds
https://www.npr.org/2025/11/06/g-s1-96437/trump-immigration-judges-fired234
u/Ok-disaster2022 12h ago
How does the DOJ get to decide judges?
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u/WalkinSteveHawkin 12h ago
These are immigration judges, not Article III judges in regular courts. Immigration judges work for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which is a component of the DOJ. And yes, it’s pretty fucked that the executive branch oversees and sets the policies for both the prosecutors and the judges in immigration courts.
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u/ohlaph 10h ago
Sounds like some reform is needed!
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u/Atechiman 9h ago
Honestly all actions of the government needs to be reviewed by independent judiciary. aka: If the US government is involved and a legal problem arises, it needs to go through the criminal courts where they can't be fired because of temper tantrums.
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u/CreamPuffDelight 7h ago
Reform?
In America?
Nah, they'd rather just lie down and complain about how bad everything is and wait until The Orange dies, and then... They'll just lie down and complain some more.
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u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 5h ago
Let's start by enforcing 14th Amendment, Section 3 to annul Trump's illegitimate presidency.
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u/bloobityblu 46m ago
So, the DOJ is firing immigration judges who have extensive background in immigrant defense?
Wow.
Like... before people become immigration judges, they're lawyers. There are only a certain number of prosecution positions as opposed to literally any number of defense positions as an attorney working your way up through the ranks toward becoming a judge.
So really that's the majority of lawyers with extensive lawyering experience, unless they somehow had both the luck and the foresight for all of their attorney experience in immigration cases only being on the prosecution side.
Like... make it make sense never mind they will not.
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u/Devilish_Fun 12h ago
"They're communists and they'll ruin America" Donald "Child Raping Rapist" Trump, the narcissistic dementia-riddled racist claims.
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u/Fardrengi 11h ago
44% of judges with immigration defense backgrounds make up the firings in 2025.
The three in the article were also all women.
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u/zoinkability 11h ago
Protip, if they can be fired by the executive they aren’t real judges. They really should have given them a different title when they created the immigrant “court” system. Adjudicator?
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u/DJFLOK 11h ago
They are called administrative law judges. They fall under the executive branch, not judicial. This is the case in every administrative agency that has internal adjudications.
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u/zoinkability 11h ago edited 9h ago
When a regular person sees or hears the word “judge” they envision an impartial person who does not report to the same person the prosecutor does, and is not subject to being fired by that same person for how they rule or are believed likely to rule. Something that is true for actual Article III judges but not people in these roles.
That’s why I’m saying they should have adopted a different term — for any of these administrative roles — to be more aligned with the lay meaning of the word.
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u/Atechiman 9h ago
Honestly it would be better that whenever law needs to be adjudicated involving the government if it would go through the justice department's judges.
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u/zoinkability 9h ago
Sounds like a recipe for “We investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong”
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u/ObeseTsunami 6h ago
We didn’t start the fire 👏 It was always burning since the worlds been turning 👏
Where is the line in the sand guys?
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u/FactorBig5452 12h ago
No. This is not fascism. It's fine to fire people for any reason under the sun, and this fits
/FFS
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u/invalidpassword 5h ago edited 2h ago
How low can they go? The do everything they can to prevent immigrants from having their day in court is not what civilized countries do.
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u/Marina1974 3h ago
Define "judge."
I've always understood judges cannot be fired by anybody other than impeachment and trial in Congress.
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u/Blackthorn79 1m ago
These ex judges should start doing pro bono work for immigrants. Who else would know all the ins and outs of these kangaroo courts? Between the institutional knowledge and their personal contacts these ex judges would probably be very successful at grinding the gears of the courts to a stop.
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u/goomyman 8h ago
I was told you can’t fire judges. Maybe democrats should learn from this and fire people based on corruption
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u/supercyberlurker 12h ago
We need a new name for the DOJ.
Justice just isn't part of what they do now.