Judges fired after blocking deportation of pro-Palestinian students

Two immigration judges who ruled against the Trump administration in the deportation cases of pro-Palestinian university students have been fired by the Department of Justice.The New York Times reported over the weekend that the justice department had terminated six judges, including Roopal Patel and Nina Froes, who oversaw deportation proceedings against Rümeysa Öztürk and Mohsen Mahdawi, two students who were arrested last year as part of Trump’s campaign against the Gaza protest movement.In an interview with the Guardian, Patel said she did not view her dismissal as “directly retaliatory” for any one case. She said it fit within a broader pattern of the administration dismissing judges near the end of their probationary term, particularly those who have experience representing immigrants in court.“I think there’s a broader agenda of trying to reshape the immigration bench to be more reflective of the political agenda of the administration,” Patel said.The Biden administration appointed both Patel and Froes to the bench in May 2024, and both had previously worked in immigration defense. A recent NPR analysis found that the Trump administration appears to be targeting immigration judges who previously represented immigrants.Earlier this year Patel rejected the administration’s efforts to deport Öztürk, then a Tufts University PhD student who had co-written an op-ed for the student newspaper critical of the university’s response to Israel’s attacks on Palestinians. Her attorneys said that Patel terminated the proceedings against her after finding the government did not have grounds to deport her.In February, Froes blocked the Trump administration from removing Mahdawi, a Columbia student and pro-Palestinian activist who was arrested during a US citizenship interview last year.Patel said she had enjoyed serving as an immigration judge, although it was difficult given the “extraordinary consequences” her decisions had on people’s lives, and that pressures had increased as the administration ramped up its deportation agenda.She was conducting a hearing on Friday afternoon and had just taken a break when she received an email notifying her that it would be her last day as the department would not be converting her to permanent status and she was terminated.Knowing that other government workers who have been terminated were quickly escorted out, Patel grabbed her things, notified a supervisor that there were people in her courtroom who would need to be dismissed, and left.In response to a query regarding the recent terminations, the justice department said in a statement that the Executive Office for Immigration Review “continually evaluates all immigration judges, regardless of background, on factors such as conduct, impartiality/bias, adherence to the law, productivity/performance, and professionalism”.“All judges have a legal, ethical, and professional obligation to be impartial and neutral in adjudicating cases,” the statement read. “If a judge violates that obligation by demonstrating a systematic bias in favor of or against either party, EOIR is obligated to take action to preserve the integrity of its system.”Patel expressed concern about the direction of the courts and the impact of having fewer people with experience representing immigrants.“It increases the likelihood of people making mistakes when you lose people with experience and training, and then you combine that with increased pressures to resolve more cases faster and faster, and it just creates less room for due process and more room for errors,” she said.“It’s important for us to have an immigration bench that is responsive to the law, to the constitution, to due process, and it is concerning to see that is being eroded actively.”