US judges fired after blocking deportations of pro-Palestinian students

NEW YORK – The Trump administration has fired two immigration judges who dismissed high-profile deportation cases against international students who had advocated for Palestinians.

The firing of the judges, Ms Roopal Patel and Ms Nina Froes, marked the latest efforts by the Trump administration to reshape the country’s immigration courts.

The administration has dismissed dozens of immigration judges and, according to those on the bench, it has put judges under pressure to deny asylum claims and order deportations. Unlike federal judges in the independent judicial branch, immigration judges work for the Justice Department and are hired and fired by the attorney-general.

The two judges, who were terminated alongside four colleagues on April 10, oversaw two high-profile cases filed by the government against the students, Ms Rumeysa Ozturk and Mr Mohsen Mahdawi.

US President Donald Trump has aggressively sought to reshape the immigration courts since he won a second term, with dramatic results.

Judges are ordering a record number of people deported and granting asylum at the lowest rate since at least 2009, the first year for which reliable data is available. Cases are being resolved faster, and a backlog of claims that soared under former president Joe Biden has started to fall.

Ms Ozturk and Mr Mahdawi were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in 2025. Their detentions had been part of a string of arrests of international students who had publicly expressed support for Palestinian causes or had taken part in protests on US campuses that the Trump administration labelled anti-Semitic.

Ms Ozturk, a Turkish-born student at Tufts University, had her student visa status in the US repealed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio after writing an article in a student newspaper criticising university leadership’s stances on Palestinian causes.

The government similarly tried to deport Mr Mahdawi, a Palestinian student at Columbia University and green card holder, because of his involvement in campus protests. Mr Rubio said Mr Mahdawi’s continued presence in the country could “potentially undermine” US foreign policy.

Civil liberties advocates said the arrests were meant to stifle free speech. The government filed cases in the immigration court to deport both students.

Ms Patel, an immigration judge in Boston, ruled in January that there were no grounds to deport Ms Ozturk. Ms Froes came to a similar conclusion in Mr Mahdawi’s case.

Ms Patel and Ms Froes had been appointed by the Biden administration in 2024. Both were approaching the end of an initial two-year probationary term before their firing.

In an interview, Ms Froes said she was unsure if ruling against Mr Mahdawi might have preserved her job.

“I don’t know what’s in the minds of other people,” she said. “But I can’t imagine it was helpful.”

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on April 11.

A US official who was not authorised to speak publicly confirmed that six judges had been fired on April 10. The official said four of them were probationary.

The nation’s immigration courts are little-known to the general public but have tremendous power. They are often the final stop before a person can be lawfully removed from the US.

Before Mr Trump returned to office, it was rare for immigration judges to be fired. His administration has so far dismissed more than 100 of them. In addition to the firings, the administration has hired more than 140 permanent and temporary judges seen as more aligned with Mr Trump’s immigration enforcement campaign.

Ms Patel and Ms Froes fit the profile of many judges who have lost their jobs during the second Trump administration: They had been appointed by a Democrat and previously represented immigrants in court.

They also granted asylum at higher rates than other judges. Under Mr Trump, Ms Patel granted asylum in 41.5 per cent of cases while Ms Froes granted asylum in 33 per cent of cases, compared with 18 per cent for judges overall, according to a New York Times analysis of immigration court data.

Ms Froes, a judge at the immigration court in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, said she was conducting an asylum hearing on the afternoon of April 10 when she received an e-mail telling her she had been dismissed.

She told lawyers for both sides that she needed to halt the case and signed out of the hearing, which was being held virtually.

“I fully expected it,” she said of her firing, citing the number of judges dismissed by the Trump administration.

Ms Froes also said she had no idea that Mr Mahdawi’s case was so high-profile when she heard it.

“You have so many people coming before you,” she said. “You don’t go Google people’s names. That’s not how it works. You look at the record.”

Ms Patel, like many immigration judges interviewed by the Times, said the Trump administration had made it clear that it wanted more immigrants ordered deported.

“It was a pressure I at least tried to actively resist,” she said in an interview. “All people in the United States are entitled to due process, and everyone deserves to have their cases adjudicated fully and fairly.”

Many experts argue that the immigration courts should be granted more independence from the executive branch, like the protections given to the administrative courts that hear tax disputes.

After her stint on the bench, Ms Patel said she agreed.

“The judges there need more judicial independence,” she said. NYTIMES