The Trump administration’s purge of immigration judges across the U.S. continued Friday, as two more judges from Concord’s immigration court were fired, according to sources with knowledge of the terminations.
Both judges – Florence Chamberlain and Roberta Wilson – were hired in November 2023 under the Biden administration, and on the verge of making it through the two-year probationary period of their employment.
Each of them had previous experience representing immigrants before their appointments to the bench.
In Sacramento, Immigration Judge Alison Daw was also fired, according to multiple sources.
Across the United States, more than 100 immigration judges have either been fired or resigned since President Donald Trump took office in January, according to the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), the union that represents immigration judges.
“The ongoing firing of effective, experienced judges and destruction of our courts should be a warning to the American people that our legal system and fundamental due process are not only under threat, they are under siege,” said Concord Immigration Judge Kyra Lilien, who was fired in July.
The immigration courts in San Francisco and Concord have both been hit hard.
Seven San Francisco judges have been fired this year, representing one-third of the court’s judges who were on the bench when Trump took office.
Another six have been let go in Concord, including three new hires who had not yet been trained or sworn in, according to Lilien.
All but one of the 13 immigration judges fired across the Bay Area this year are women.
Unlike most judges, immigration judges are part of the executive branch and work under the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).
As the Trump administration seemingly purges immigration judges across the country, Judge Ila Deiss was terminated in San Francisco late last week. Hilda Gutierrez reports.
While the firings have been almost weekly occurrences over the past few months, the Trump administration is simultaneously trying to bring on new judges, citing a huge backlog of pending cases in immigration court.
Up to 600 military attorneys were recently authorized to step in as temporary immigration judges, and EOIR just posted a job listing seeking to reemploy retired immigration judges.
Many of the fired judges, along with the union that represents them, have been warning about political pressure to side with government attorneys or discount due process for immigrants.
An EOIR policy memo in April urged judges to throw out so-called “insufficient” asylum applications without ever holding a hearing.
Bay Area native Irma Perez was recently let go just days before her second anniversary as a judge in Los Angeles. Nathalie Vera reports.
In July, another policy memo on “adjudicator impartiality and independence” reminded judges that they are “inferior officers subject to both appointment and removal by the Attorney General.”
Dismissed judges who have spoken to NBC Bay Area say they believe the administration is targeting judges with past experience representing immigrants, or who have a high rate of granting asylum.
“Immigration courts must be independent of the executive branch in order to function fairly,” Lilien said. “For decades, immigration judges have been sounding the alarm, and now we are living the consequence of this flawed structure.”
An EOIR spokesperson declined to comment on the firings.
As the Trump administration carries out a wave of firings targeting U.S. immigration judges across the country, NBC Bay Area has confirmed through multiple sources that two Bay Area immigration judges were among those let go over the past week.
Hilda Gutierrez and Michael Bott
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