GOP Lawmakers Demand Answers from Merrick Garland Over Removal of Trump-era Immigration Judges

Leah Barkoukis | July 06, 2022 8:00 AM

In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, 12 House Republicans are demanding to know why Trump-appointed immigration judges are being dismissed even as the border crisis rages.

“Your department is unfairly terminating Trump-appointed immigration judges amid a historic border crisis and rapidly growing immigration case backlog,” wrote the lawmakers, led by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ).

According to a recent report from The Washington Times, at least six Trump-era judges have been removed from their posts.

“It’s an attempt to weaponize the courts along ideological lines,” Matthew J. O’Brien, one of the ousted judges told the Times. “It’s court packing on steroids. It’s court packing by deletion and then addition, because they’re getting rid of judges and they’re replacing them with people who meet their ideological framework.”

Mr. O’Brien was coming up on the end of his two-year probationary period, and the Justice Department, which runs EOIR, declined to convert his post to a permanent judgeship.
He said it’s exceptionally rare to use the probation period ouster, and it’s usually only done for cases of serious job misconduct such as sexual harassment. Trump administration officials said they couldn’t recall a single judge ousted after a probationary period because of politics. (The Washington Times)

The Republicans note in the letter that O’Brien’s termination “comes at a time when the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) … is experiencing difficulty hiring and retaining federal immigration judges. It also comes at a time when the nation’s immigration court backlog is growing faster than ever, with more than 1.5 million cases pending."

The Biden administration claims decisions about career civil service employees are made “solely on performance” rather than politics, but the Republicans highlight how activist attorneys and open borders groups called for O’Brien’s removal. They argue the DOJ’s motives are “nefarious.”

In addition to Biggs, the House Republicans demanding a number of answers related to the judges’ terminations include Reps. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Tom Tiffany (R-WI), Brian Babin (R-TX), Doug Lamborn (R-CO), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Kat Cammack (R-FL) Mary Miller (R-IL), Randy Weber (R-TX), Andrew Clyde (R-GA), Ralph Norman (R-SC), and Jody Hice (R-TX).