Since January, the Trump administration has hollowed out San Francisco’s immigration court, firing all but nine of the 21 judges who started the year on the bench. The result is a court in disarray. Some judges keep their personal belongings packed in boxes, bracing for their dismissals. Staffers openly weep. Asylum seekers who have waited years for their day in court lose their place in line when their judge is fired, leaving them to wait years longer.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice, which oversees the nation’s immigration court system, has sent regular memos pressing for legal interpretations that could lead to more deportations and seemingly criticizing judges who grant asylum too often.
“In a normal workplace, you don’t get memos every Friday telling you that half of you or so are doing a bad job,” said Shira Levine, a former San Francisco immigration judge. “And you don’t have your colleagues fired for no reason in the middle of the workday, despite the fact that up until that point, they’d received nothing but accolades.”
Levine was dismissed in September, one of more than 100 immigration judges around the U.S. who have been fired or accepted buyouts since January.
Immigration judges rarely speak publicly and almost never discuss the inner workings of the courts. On this episode of “Pacific Standard Time,” Levine sounds off, reflecting on the dramatic shift under President Donald Trump and what the unraveling of the immigration court system means for California.
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