The Trump administration has dismissed eight immigration judges in New York City, sharply reducing staff at one of the nation’s busiest immigration courts even as President Donald Trump pledges to accelerate deportations, The New York Times reported late Monday.
The group included an assistant chief immigration judge who supervised colleagues at the court inside 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan. The judges were informed that their positions were ending as part of a broader nationwide overhaul of the immigration bench, the Times reported, citing union representatives and Justice Department officials.
These New York terminations are only one piece of a much larger trend: about 90 immigration judges have been removed across the United States this year, with just 36 new judges appointed to replace them, according to the Times. In a system that processes hundreds of thousands of deportation and asylum cases annually and is already straining under a record backlog of more than 3.7 million pending matters, the shake-up represents a major disruption.
Why It Matters
Immigration judges decide whether people are allowed to remain in the United States or must be deported. Removing dozens of seasoned adjudicators in the middle of a mass deportation campaign risks deepening the already severe backlog and raises new concerns about fairness and due process in immigration courts.
Trump’s plan for large-scale removals is colliding with a system clogged by nearly 4 million pending cases. Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration attorney and Cornell Law School professor, previously told Newsweek that “you just cannot deport people without a hearing,” underscoring how central judges are to the process.
Union officials and former judges have also told Newsweek that earlier rounds of firings and pressure within the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR)—the Justice Department agency that oversees immigration courts—have already added years to asylum timelines, with some hearings now pushed into 2028.
What’s Happening in New York
The latest round of dismissals hits the roster at 26 Federal Plaza, which has a little over 30 immigration judges. Losing eight of them significantly thins the bench at a courthouse that has become a focal point of Trump’s stepped-up enforcement in New York City.
According to the Times, all eight judges worked out of 26 Federal Plaza, the downtown complex that houses both the city’s primary immigration court and local offices of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Among those let go was Amiena A. Khan, the assistant chief immigration judge at the courthouse, who supervised other judges there.
The National Association of Immigration Judges confirmed the firings. A Justice Department official also acknowledged the dismissals, speaking on condition of anonymity. EOIR declined to answer detailed questions about why the judges were removed or whether performance metrics, ideology, or specific caseload decisions factored into the shake-up.
Before Monday’s actions, the administration had already dismissed roughly 90 immigration judges nationwide this year, including six in New York City, with only a small share of those jobs refilled. EOIR typically oversees between 600 and 700 immigration judges across the country, each responsible for hundreds of cases every year, according to numbers previously cited by union officials.
Political and Public-Safety Backdrop
The restructuring comes as Trump intensifies his rhetoric on immigration following the shooting of two National Guard members near the White House—one of whom later died—after authorities said the suspect was an Afghan national. In recent posts on Truth Social, the president has vowed to halt migration from “all Third World Countries” so that, in his words, the U.S. system can “fully recover,” casting tougher enforcement and faster removals as pillars of his second-term agenda.
The New York court at 26 Federal Plaza has also been the site of a series of tense and highly public confrontations involving ICE officers, migrants, their families and city officials.
In September, a federal ICE agent in New York City was relieved of duty after viral video showed him pushing a woman to the ground outside the same courthouse, prompting multiple investigations.
What People Are Saying
Former New York immigration judge Olivia Cassin described the impact of the new dismissals starkly: “The court has been basically eviscerated. It feels like a Monday afternoon massacre.”
Another former federal immigration judge who was laid off earlier this year—and requested anonymity because of ongoing legal appeals—told Newsweek she believes the administration’s approach has already added years to the wait for asylum hearings.
“I already had a backlog where I was filled for 2027,” she said. “So my hearing dates are probably going to go back to 2028, and then you have to take all those cases and add them to the other judges. You’re looking at years of delay of cases because you’re removing judges from the courtroom.”
What Comes Next
In the short term, losing eight judges at a single courthouse almost certainly means even longer delays for immigrants who have already been waiting years for their day in court—at the same time Trump and his allies insist they are trying to speed up deportations.
Immigration attorneys have previously told Newsweek that earlier rounds of firings have already extended asylum timelines, and that finding, hiring and training new immigration judges can take at least a year. As the administration pursues more aggressive enforcement with fewer judges on the bench, the gap between its stated goals and the system’s capacity is likely to grow wider.
