The halls of New York’s immigration court—already a pressure cooker of overflowing dockets, ICE activity and near-constant protest—fell noticeably quieter this week. Not because the caseload eased, but because the roster of people authorized to hear those cases suddenly thinned.
At least seven immigration judges stationed at 26 Federal Plaza were dismissed in one sweep, a move uncovered through a staff-directory shake-up and confirmed by the judges’ association. The building, long a flashpoint in the nation’s immigration battles, now has fewer decision-makers at a time when federal agents are escalating arrests and fast-tracking removals.
The firings aren’t an isolated event. Well over a hundred immigration judges have been shown the door or pressured out since the administration’s return to power—an exodus that legal advocates say is hollowing out the system just as its workload grows heavier.
Immigration judges, unlike their counterparts in the federal judiciary, serve under the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. The administration has repeatedly asserted it can remove these judges at will, characterizing them as inferior officers subject to presidential and attorney general oversight.
While the Justice Department declined to explain the cuts, the pattern is unmistakable. San Francisco lost five judges last month. Another disappeared from Boston’s rolls. A former Ohio judge fired earlier this year has already sued, arguing her dismissal was rooted in discrimination rather than performance.
New York’s latest round includes a prominent name: Amiena Khan, assistant chief immigration judge and a vocal critic of past attempts to dismantle the immigration-judges union. She rose to lead that union in 2021. By Tuesday morning, her name—along with six other women’s—had vanished from the online directory. Most had been appointed under Democratic administrations; two had been selected during the former Trump era.
With their departure, New York is left with just 25 permanent immigration judges to manage an ever-thickening tide of cases. Khan, whose dismissal reverberated quickly through the immigration-law community, could not be reached for comment.
What remains is a system under strain—and a courthouse where too many chairs now sit empty.
