A former Bay Area immigration judge is suing the Department of Justice, alleging she was terminated because of her political views and associations.<\/p>\n
The journey marked the beginning of Johnson’s effort to witness firsthand the conditions faced by migrants fleeing violence and poverty in Central America.<\/p>\n
“Many deported Cubans were there in the city, and then many Haitians,” Johnson said.<\/p>\n
Johnson said his mission was to travel south to Guatemala to trace his final case as an immigration judge.<\/p>\n
“The last words I said on the bench were, you’ve been granted asylum in the United States. That decision is final. Welcome to the United States,” he said.<\/p>\n
Johnson said he was fired by the Department of Justice about 30 minutes after granting asylum to an Indigenous family from Guatemala, a moment he said propelled him to seek answers.<\/p>\n
MORE: 21 immigration judges fired in San Francisco, many reportedly without explanation<\/a><\/p>\n “If I could explore it through the path of this one person, this one family, to go to that village, and that’s when I went there,” Johnson said. “I realized I needed to perhaps meet the parents, since the parents were still alive and still in a village. And the attack that had occurred that caused the basis for asylum – the asylum seeker’s brother, younger brother, had been murdered during that attack – so I needed to go and dig a little deeper.”<\/p>\n With the help of an interpreter, Johnson hiked to a remote village in Todos Santos, Guatemala. He took flowers to the burial site of the brother who was killed and met with the parents of the individual he had granted asylum to in San Francisco.<\/p>\n “When we just mentioned the son’s name, the pain that was in her face – the mother’s face – of just remembering a lost child. The pain that the father had, and he also had a very deep scar on his chin that was consistent with what was written in the declaration,” Johnson said.<\/p>\n Asked what he was seeking from the journey, Johnson said, “I wasn’t really seeking. I wasn’t seeking anything. I was opening myself up to see what would happen. I really was trying to understand the relationships people have. No longer a judge.”<\/p>\n At least 18 immigration judges have been fired in San Francisco since 2025. Johnson said he has still not been given a clear reason for his termination. An analysis by the ABC7 Data Team of immigration court data shows Johnson granted asylum in 88.9% of his cases.<\/p>\n
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