Fired Biden immigration judge lashes out at Trump: ‘It was political’

An immigration judge appointed by former President Joe Biden is lashing out after being fired by President Donald Trump.

“It was political,” Judge Kerry Doyle said, according to a report from WGBH.

Doyle, who worked in Massachusetts, was one of more than 20 immigration judges fired in recent days without explanation, with Doyle saying she received an email from the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) last week that read the agency had “determined that retaining” her was “not in the best interest of the agency.”

Administrative judges like Doyle do not have the same protection from firing as federal judges, who are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate to fill lifetime terms.

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Nevertheless, Doyle told WGBH in an interview that Trump’s decision will undermine faith in the nation’s immigration system.

“If you start making it political, it really does blow the system up and blow up people’s faith in the system,” said Doyle, who previously helped lead a court challenge against Trump’s 2017 travel ban for people from multiple Muslim-majority countries. “None of us were there to drive a political agenda. We were there to do our jobs.”

Doyle noted that many judges in the Boston area have served on the immigration court across multiple administrations, arguing that those appointed to fill the roles don’t act in a partisan manner.

“It would be problematic for it to be political because what civil servants do is they serve the public — we swear an oath to the Constitution,” she said.

But the firings have raised concerns that the already large backlog of immigration cases will now take even longer to clear, with International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers President Matthew Biggs pointing out that a single judge can rule on 500 to 700 cases per year.

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“Look up the definition of ‘hypocrisy.’ It’s ‘when someone says one thing but does another.’ The firing of immigration judges when we need more judges to enforce our immigration laws by this administration is a perfect example of hypocrisy,” Briggs, whose organization represents the nation’s roughly 700 immigration judges, told WGBH.

Massachusetts alone has a backlog of about 160,000 cases, the report notes. Doyle was readying to take over the cases of a colleague who had just left the court, meaning some of those cases could now be on an extended timeline.

“Those cases will have to be handed out to all the other judges. So it’s going to be even more work for them,” she said. “They need every judge, every person available. And so it will just make the court more congested. Folks are working very hard already.”

The report notes that the recent firings are not the first time a new administration has fired judges, pointing to a 2021 example in which Judge Marna Rusher, who was hired by Trump, was fired shortly after Biden took office.

But Doyle had less of an issue with that decision, reasoning Biden’s decision was less likely to be “politically motivated.”

“Maybe it’s just that each president wants to have his imprimatur and people who will follow his agenda. I don’t know,” Doyle said. “I don’t think that I would call that politically motivated in as much as they think they have a better idea for America and fairly treating people that come across the border.”