Trump fires judges who threw out student deportation cases

The Trump administration fired six immigration judges on April 12-13, 2026, including Roopal Patel and Nina Froes — both Boston-based judges who had recently dismissed deportation cases against pro-Palestinian student activists Boston Globe. Patel terminated removal proceedings against Tufts Ph.D. student Rümeysa Öztürk, finding the Department of Homeland Security had not proven grounds for deportation. Froes blocked the deportation of Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi after finding the government had not properly certified Secretary of State Marco Rubio's foreign policy memo WBUR. A New York Times analysis found Patel granted asylum in 41.5 percent of cases and Froes in 33 percent — both above the national average of 18 percent. The administration's pattern of firing judges with above-average asylum grant rates signals a systematic effort to reshape outcomes, not just personnel.

Immigration judges in the United States do not serve as part of the independent federal judiciary protected by Article III of the Constitution. Instead, they are federal employees within the Executive Office for Immigration ReviewExecutive Office for Immigration ReviewThe Justice Department component that runs immigration courts and the immigration appeals board.Key ConceptExecutive Office for Immigration ReviewThe Justice Department component that runs immigration courts and the immigration appeals board.Open conceptBookmark, an agency inside the Department of Justice The Daily Record. This structural placement means immigration judges serve at the pleasure of the attorney general and can be fired — especially during a two-year probationary period — without the cause or procedural protections that apply to Article III judges who hold lifetime appointments. The Trump administration exploited this structure by targeting Patel and Froes while they were still in their probationary periods, making dismissal legally straightforward. Critics including the National Association of Immigration Judges have argued this structure allows the executive branch to compromise immigration court independence and predetermine case outcomes by controlling who sits on the bench.

The Trump administration fired more than 113 immigration judges from a pool of approximately 750 between January 2025 and April 2026 — roughly 15 percent of the total immigration judiciary Democracy Now. Simultaneously, the administration hired replacement judges and temporary judges, allowing it to reshape the composition of the immigration court system without Congress passing new immigration legislation. This dual strategy of mass firing and targeted replacement bypasses the legislative process entirely: the executive branch can effectively choose which populations of immigration cases receive favorable or unfavorable judges, remaking immigration policy through personnel decisions rather than statutory change.

Rümeysa Öztürk is a Turkish national and Ph.D. candidate in child study and human development at Tufts University who co-authored an op-ed in the Tufts student newspaper calling for the university to divest from Israel-connected companies ACLU. ICE agents arrested her in March 2025 after Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked her student visa, citing the op-ed as a national security risk. Immigration Judge Roopal Patel terminated her removal proceedings in early 2026, finding DHS had provided no legal basis for deportation WBUR. Öztürk subsequently completed her PhD and returned to Turkey following a settlement with the U.S. government in April 2026 — the same month her judge was fired. Mohsen Mahdawi is a Palestinian-American Columbia University student who was detained during campus protests; Judge Froes blocked his deportation in February 2026 after finding Rubio's memo was improperly certified.

Immigration courts currently face a backlog of more than 3.7 million pending cases, the largest in U.S. history WGBH. Firing experienced judges adds to processing delays — each fired judge takes with them institutional knowledge about case management, legal standards, and regional detention conditions. The administration's simultaneous hiring of replacement judges does not immediately offset these losses: new judges require months of training and accreditation before they can hear cases efficiently. The mass terminations also create uncertainty for immigrants in pending cases, as reassignment to new judges can reset procedural timelines and delay resolution for years.