STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The administration has been getting rid of the people who decide if immigrants can stay or must go. They've been firing immigration judges throughout this year, and the ones fired over the past week or so are different than the rest. NPR immigration policy reporter Ximena Bustillo is covering this. Ximena, good morning.
XIMENA BUSTILLO, BYLINE: Hi, Steve.
INSKEEP: What happened here?
BUSTILLO: Well, just before Thanksgiving, seven judges out of San Francisco, New York and Boston received a very short email. It's a generic email that says the attorney general has decided their time with the agency was over. Then on Monday, at least seven more judges, all out of New York, got that email, too.
INSKEEP: OK. And we should note, these are people who work part of the administration, not the judicial branch. That's why the attorney general will get rid of them. But we said these are distinct or different. How are these people different?
BUSTILLO: Right. These were more experienced judges. The administration has so far fired about 90 of these judges, and most of them were at the end of their two-year probationary period. This round, we identified 13 who had all been at the agency for longer than two years. Targeting tenured judges expands the scope of who could be let go, as the administration really looks to reshape these courts. As you mentioned, immigration judges are more like other federal workers. These courts within the Justice Department and under the direction of the president, ultimately, not the judicial branch of government.
INSKEEP: Well, why would the administration fire more experienced judges?
BUSTILLO: You know, it's hard to say. This administration has essentially been doing two things. First, it's put pressure on judges to move faster through a backlog of cases. There are currently nearly 4 million cases waiting for decisions in immigration courts. But the White House has also said that there has been a, quote, "lack of integrity" in the immigration court system. The implication here is that immigration judges have been biased in favor of immigrants but fired immigration judges have told me that they don't see it that way. Here's Jeremiah Johnson, who was fired in San Francisco recently.
JEREMIAH JOHNSON: I wasn't worried about my backlog. I wasn't worried about the crushing load that we found ourselves in at the end. I put that aside in every case I came in and I heard, and I took the time needed for each case to get it right.
BUSTILLO: Johnson and many others said that they did not get told specifically why they were terminated.
INSKEEP: Ximena, if you were here, you would have seen my mouth hanging open when you said there are 4 million cases waiting for resolutions. Is the administration doing anything to bring on more judges to do that job?
BUSTILLO: They have authorized the use of 600 military lawyers as temporary immigration judges. As a part of the move, the White House scrapped the requirement that these temporary judges should have immigration law experience. Some Democrats on the Hill, led by California Senator Adam Schiff, want to prevent that and have introduced a bill to make it harder to use people without immigration experience as temporary judges. There are currently 25 military lawyers serving in these roles. The problem, critics say, isn't that their background is military law. It's that they have to digest hugely complex immigration law in a matter of weeks and then make these huge decisions affecting immigrants' lives. Here's Emmett Soper, who was with the agency for 20 years before being fired this year.
EMMETT SOPER: It's not something that you pick up right away. And with all of these judges, many of whom are very experienced, being fired, the agency is losing something that it will take a long time to get back if they ever can.
INSKEEP: I'm remembering last year, Congress tried to hire more judges, and Republicans sank that on the orders the dictation of President Trump. So has the agency tried anything else to just hire more regular judges?
BUSTILLO: The Justice Department has launched a campaign to hire what it is calling, quote, "deportation judges." They did get a lot of money from Congress in order to do that this year, and the hiring campaign offers a pay recruitment incentive for those to work in courts out of New York, California and Massachusetts. Our reporting shows those locations have been particularly hit hard by the firings.
INSKEEP: NPR's Ximena Bustillo. Thanks so much.
BUSTILLO: Thank you.
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