Former immigration judges are sounding the alarm as the Trump administration continues to fire dozens of federal immigration judges in a move they say is “unprecedented.”
Dana Leigh Marks, who served 35 years as an immigration judge in San Francisco, said she was shocked to hear three of her colleagues in Sacramento — Loreto Geisse, Robert Maggard and Alison Daw — were all let go without a public explanation.
“I was in shock and could not believe that any of them who I know personally to be outstanding judges, hard working and incredibly smart and fair, all of them with long tenures with the government,” she said. “It just seemed impossible to me that they would be fired.”
Marks said veteran judges like those in Sacramento are normally only removed for misconduct. To her, these firings appear to be based on executive authority rather than any personal performance issues.
Data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, shows that each of the three judges denied asylum claims at far lower rates than other judges in Sacramento and nationwide. Maggard, for instance, denied less than 5% of claims — far below the national average of roughly 60% for immigration judges.
Inexperienced judges fill the gap
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Department of War — formerly known as the Department of Defense — authorized up to 600 military lawyers to serve as temporary immigration judges to compensate for the firings. Marks said that decision will likely lead to more deportations, even for immigrants who have strong cases for remaining in the United States.
“Immigration judges do death penalty cases in a traffic court setting when it comes to asylum cases where someone may lose their life if they’re ordered removed,” she stressed. “It just makes no sense to fire experienced judges on imagined political, ideological reasons and then bring in people that have no experience in immigration law.”
Marks said immigration law is routinely classified as being second in complexity only to tax law, but argued that “it's more complex” and that “there's no Turbo Tax equivalent for immigration law.” She warned the firings could create chaos in a system already dealing with a backlog of roughly 3.6 million cases by inspiring “endless appeals from people who say, ‘This judge was not qualified to hear my case.’”
The National Association of Immigration Judges, where Marks served as a past president , was decertified by the Trump administration. Marks explained that the organization can no longer use a collective bargaining agreement that provided protections in performance evaluations and criteria. Before this, Marks said these judges could expect to serve for life.
Probation periods and political pressure
JJ Mulligan, an immigration attorney at the UC Davis Immigration Law Clinic, explained that many of the judges being fired were appointed by President Joe Biden and were nearing the end of their two-year probationary period.
He argues the fact that they’re being replaced by military judges inexperienced in immigration law will make the process even more difficult for immigrants.
“If you think about this in the criminal court context, imagine someone going without a public defender and the prosecutor saying, ‘This guy's guilty of so and so crime,’ and the judge is just going along with whatever the prosecutor says,’” Mulligan stressed. “You can imagine how many people in criminal court would be going to jail or pleading out to these terrible charges even if they're innocent just because they don't know anything about the legal system.”
Mulligan also noted that cases are being scheduled farther into the future — as late as 2028 or 2029 — as a result of the firings.
Former Los Angeles immigration judge Ashley Tabaddor estimates the Trump administration has let go over 120 judges nationwide despite job protections that in the past were honored. She called the administration’s recent actions the “nuclear option.”
“There was always a recognition that there wouldn't be politically motivated adverse actions against immigration judges, but what we're seeing seems to be quite transparently politically motivated adverse actions against immigration judges,” added Tabaddor, who served as an immigration judge for 15 years.
She warned of a chilling effect on judges:
“I don't think it's humanly possible to expect anyone to exercise independent decision making when they know that their job is on the line based on the decisions they make or anything they may say or do in that position,” she emphasized.
Impact on Sacramento’s immigrant community
Sacramento’s John Moss Federal Building houses multiple immigration courtrooms handling dozens of cases weekly. Giselle Garcia, programs director for local mutual aid organization NorCal Resist, said many immigrants were used to working with the same judge.
Now, she said, cases are being rescheduled without explanation.
“There’s not even transparency for them in that moment where they went in, got rescheduled without even knowing that judge was just simply never coming back,” she said.
Rhonda Rios Kravitz with the Sacramento Immigration Coalition said the firings and related anti-immigrant policies are making many immigrants afraid to show up for court.
“Because you will not be getting a fair hearing,” she said.
Kravitz also described incidents of intimidation toward volunteers accompanying immigrants.
“One of my friends, while accompanying people in the courthouse, was pushed by these masked, unidentified men in the courthouse, pushed against the wall so her arms were bruised,” she said. “She was taken up and down the elevator, had her picture taken and told, ‘We know who you are.’”
Kravitz said these tactics aim to instill fear not only in immigrants but also in those who want to help them.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to requests for comment.
