The Trump administration made the decision to fire 20 immigration judges without providing any official justification on Friday (14), according to information released by the Associated Press (https://apnews.com/article/trump-immigration-court-judges-fired-firings-d35eed0f685739c4a19d4c8baf39113a). The measure is part of a broader set of actions aimed at reducing the size of the federal government. The previous Friday, 13 judges who had not yet taken office and five assistant chief justices were abruptly dismissed, as reported by Matthew Biggs, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, which represents federal workers to the news agency. In addition, the previous week, two other judges had been dismissed under similar circumstances.

So far, there is no information on whether these judges will be replaced. The Executive Office of Immigration Review, which operates within the U.S. Justice Department and administers about 700 judges in immigration courts, did not provide any response to requests for clarification about the dismissals.

Immigration courts face a huge backlog of cases, with more than 3.7 million cases pending, according to data from Syracuse University. This bottleneck makes decisions on asylum applications take years to be completed. In different political currents, there is consensus on the need to increase the number of judges and support staff to deal with this overload. However, the first Trump administration had already taken steps to pressure judges to speed up trials.

The administration also made changes in the leadership of immigration courts, replacing five senior officials, including Mary Cheng, who served as acting director. Sirce Owen, who took the leadership position and was previously an immigration appellate judge, issued new guidelines that reversed several policies adopted during the Biden administration. In addition, the previous month, the Justice Department had cut funding to nongovernmental organizations that provide support and guidance to immigrants facing deportation, but later reversed the decision after a lawsuit filed by a coalition of nonprofit groups, according to the publication.

The resignations of immigration judges reflect two of the Trump administration's top priorities: implementing large-scale deportations and shrinking the public workforce. In an even broader move, on Thursday (13), the government ordered federal agencies to fire almost all employees who were still on probation and who did not have stability in the public service, which could affect hundreds of thousands of workers, since this category includes civil servants with less than a year in office.

Biggs said he was not sure if the decision to dismiss the justices was intended to send a political message on immigration but described the move as part of a broader action against the entire federal workforce. He harshly criticized the government's approach, stating that employees are being treated without regard for their human condition and that the situation is serious in all respects.