The Trump administration appeared to be unmoved by a discrimination suit filed Monday by an Ohio judge when later that day it let go eight immigration judges in Manhattan.
The judges who worked out of 26 Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan were terminated, according to an official in the National Association of Immigration Judges.
Earlier Monday, Tania Nemer sued the Justice Department on the grounds she was terminated from her post as an Ohio immigration judge because of her gender, a citizen of Lebanon and was a Democratic candidate for local office.
About 200 immigration judges have resigned or been let go as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s effort to trim inefficiencies and spending by encouraging federal employees to leave their jobs. Roughly 100 of those were fired, the NAIJ official said.
The judges were terminated despite a backlog of 3.4 million immigration cases in the federal system, according to Syracuse University’s TRAC Reports.
The War Department said in September it planned to send 600 military lawyers to serve temporarily as immigration judges — but so far only 25 have gone through the required training and have begun hearing cases, the NAIJ official said.
Just 11 new permanent judges have been installed, despite Congress creating 800 federal immigration judiciary jobs as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Nemer’s suit, filed in Washington, DC, federal court, claims she was sacked on Feb. 5, in part, because she unsuccessfully ran for office earlier on in her career. She alleged this violated her Constitutional right to engage in political activity.
But the DOJ argued in her previous Equal Employment Opportunity complaint that the Trump administration has the right to fire employees and they let Nemer go as part of a “lawful exercise” of that authority.
Nemer began her judgeship in 2023 under former President Joe Biden’s administration. She is seeking to be reinstated.
With Post Wires
