MARYLAND — The Trump administration has fired more than 113 immigration judges since January 2025 and replaced them with military lawyers and political appointees. Other judges have been pushed out through buyouts and reassignments.

The departures have coincided with a broader effort, supported by Elon Musk's "department of government efficiency", to offer buyouts to federal employees seen as obstacles to the administration's deportation priorities. On June 27, 2025, Sirce E Owen, acting director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, issued a policy memorandum addressing conduct on the bench.

"There are some Immigration Judges who appear to believe — based on their own personal policy preferences — that exhibiting bias is justifiable in certain situations, as long as that bias is in favor of an alien and against the Department of Homeland Security," Owen said. The memorandum threatened corrective or disciplinary action against immigration judges and suggested that those who disagreed should consider transitioning to alternate career paths.

Jeremiah Johnson had been a judge at the San Francisco immigration court since 2017, appointed by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He received a termination letter on November 21, 2025, and was locked out of the system, ending his service. According to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, Johnson granted asylum in a larger share of his cases than the national average. He also serves as executive vice-president of the National Association of Immigration Judges.

"They claim they have to reverse the Biden era, that judges have implicit bias, and they have a duty to weed it out," Johnson said. "Then, tell me I have an implicit bias. Tell me that's why I'm being fired. If you say I have implicit bias, show me the statistics," he added.

The San Francisco immigration court went from 21 judges at the start of 2025 to just four early in 2026. On May 1, the court closed, leaving a backlog of 120,000 cases and transferring much of its operations to a smaller court 35 miles away.