A former U.S. immigration judge has taken her dismissal to court, accusing the administration of weaponizing presidential power to oust her for reasons she says had nothing to do with performance—and everything to do with who she is.
In her lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., Tania Nemer recounts the moment her judicial career was abruptly cut short on February 5, just days into the president’s second term. She was on the bench when her supervisor stepped in, halted proceedings, and informed her she was out—effective immediately, with no explanation given.
Nemer argues that the real reasons sit in plain view: she is a woman, the American-born child of Lebanese immigrants with dual citizenship, and once ran for local office as a Democrat. Her complaint says those facts were enough to place her on the wrong side of an administration that, according to her suit, believes immigration judges can be removed at will—even for discriminatory reasons.
She contends the removal violated Title VII, the foundational civil rights law barring workplace discrimination, and infringed on her constitutional right to political expression. But the Justice Department’s own equal employment office had shut down her internal complaint, saying the president’s Article II authority gave him broad power to dismiss immigration judges without statutory constraint.
Nemer’s attorneys are challenging that premise head-on, insisting that constitutional protections don’t evaporate at the courthouse door. They argue that no administration—past or present—can invoke executive power to justify discrimination.
Her firing is far from isolated. According to the American Immigration Lawyers Association, more than 100 immigration judges—over one-seventh of the entire corps—have been dismissed or pressured out since January. The result, the organization warns, is a system stretched thin even as the government accelerates arrests and removal proceedings.
Nemer is now asking a federal judge to order her reinstatement, setting up what could become a major legal battle over the boundaries of presidential authority and the rights of those who serve in the nation’s immigration courts.
