U.N. report sounds alarm over Trump’s mass firing of immigration judges

This is an adapted excerpt from the July 19 episode of “Connect with Jacob Soboroff.”

There’s an important position at the United Nations that has a very fancy sounding title, and for good reason: the special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers. It’s their responsibility to monitor judicial independence around the world.

The job exists to protect everyday people because one of the first things would-be autocrats often do is undermine the independence of the courts by firing judges and replacing them with loyalists.

For years, the rapporteur’s investigations focused on countries with some of the world’s worst records on human rights and the rule of law, like Afghanistan, where women have been barred from serving as judges; Belarus, where defense lawyers have been jailed; and Zimbabwe, where independent judges have faced intimidation and threats.

But last week, the United States became the subject of one of those investigations. On Thursday, Special Rapporteur Margaret Satterthwaite issued a formal communication criticizing the U.S. over the dismissal of immigration judges.

Now, regardless of where you fall politically, it’s remarkable that the U.S. is now being scrutinized by the same U.N. office that has long investigated repressive regimes.

According to Satterthwaite’s findings, at least 135 immigration judges have been terminated since January 2025. Many received an email with no explanation or no allegation of misconduct, just a notice informing them that the attorney general had decided to remove them.

Immigration courts are different from the federal courts most Americans are familiar with. They aren’t part of the judicial branch. They are administrative courts housed inside the Justice Department, which means the same government prosecuting a deportation case also employs the judge deciding it.

That structure has existed for decades, and critics have long argued that it leaves immigration judges vulnerable to political pressure. But for years, immigration judges had one important safeguard: civil service protections. They generally could not be fired “without cause.”

That was until the Trump administration removed the lone Democratic member of the Merit Systems Protection Board, the panel that hears many federal employment disputes. The board then ruled that immigration judges can be fired at will.

With that safeguard gone, the firings began. And according to the U.N. experts, the dismissals were not random. Judges who granted asylum at rates above the national average were disproportionately removed, and so were judges with backgrounds representing immigrants or humanitarian organizations or appointed by the previous administration.

Entire courts have gone dark. The San Francisco immigration court, once staffed by 21 judges, has shut down. Across nine states, more than a dozen immigration courts have lost over half their judges.

Here’s what that means in practice: According to the National Association of Immigration Judges, every judge who leaves an immigration courtroom leaves roughly 700 pending cases behind. Those cases end up reassigned, with remaining judges now responsible for some 10,000 to 12,000 cases.

But if you think this affects only judges appointed by Democratic presidents, think again. Judge Brea Burgie served on the immigration bench in Denver. She was appointed during President Donald Trump’s first term after spending more than a decade working in the immigration system, much of it representing the government.

Then, late last year, she granted bond to a Colorado mother and outspoken Trump critic who had spent nine months in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention. Burgie ruled that the government had failed to meet its burden to justify continued detention. An ICE spokesperson publicly labeled the Republican appointee an “activist judge.”

Soon afterward, a federal district court ruled that detained immigrants were entitled to bond hearings. The DOJ ordered judges to ignore the federal court.

But Burgie followed the court ruling. She returned to the bench, switched on her microphone and announced on the record that she would continue holding those hearings. Days later, her docket was stripped away and reassigned. Other judges reversed her decisions, and she was disciplined.

Last month, while she was touring the East Coast with her two kids to celebrate America’s 250th birthday, she got the call: She was terminated, effective immediately. No reason given.

Now consider who’s replacing judges like Burgie. The administration has launched a recruitment campaign seeking lawyers to become what it called “deportation judges” — not immigration judges.

Remember what’s at stake in these courtrooms. Immigration judges decide whether a person will be allowed to remain in the U.S., or be sent back to a country where they may face persecution, imprisonment or even death.

And here’s the part we should all be paying attention to and the reason this story matters far beyond immigration: Authoritarian governments rarely begin by stripping everyone’s rights at once. They start with groups who have the least political power and the fewest defenders, betting that no one will care. And once society accepts those departures from the rule of law, the tactics expand.

If this playbook works on the immigration courts, nothing says it stops there.

Burgie put it this way: “It’s not just one court system that’s being attacked. I think everyone has an interest in making sure that our systems function correctly … and if the immigration court doesn’t, what’s the next court to not function correctly? Will it be the Social Security courts? Will it be the EEOC [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission]? People aren’t going to be able to get justice when their due process rights are violated.”

She’s pointing to something much bigger than immigration. Due process isn’t some hard-to-understand technicality, nor is it some abstract academic thing. It’s one of the oldest and most fundamental promises in American law: that the government cannot take your liberty, your livelihood or your life without proving its case before a neutral judge.

That’s why the U.N. monitors judicial independence and that’s why its findings deserve the attention of every American — not just those who care about immigration.

The strength of a democracy isn’t measured by how it treats the wealthy, the well-connected or Trump’s allies. It’s measured by whether the person with the least power can still expect the law to protect them equally.

Allison Detzel contributed.

The post U.N. report sounds alarm over Trump’s mass firing of immigration judges appeared first on MS NOW.