Justice Department fired San Francisco immigration judge Chloe Dillon amid purge of high asylum-grant-rate judges

On August 22, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice fired San Francisco immigration judge Chloe Dillon by email, informing her the termination was effective immediately and giving no reason. Dillon was in her chambers finishing a hearing when she found the message, titled "Notice of Termination," in her inbox; her supervisor arrived minutes later to have her sign paperwork acknowledging the firing and return government property.

Dillon's dismissal came amid a wave of firings that had already removed several San Francisco immigration judges in the preceding months, and it coincided with a Justice Department Executive Office for Immigration Review policy memo, released the same day, on "Adjudicator Independence and Impartiality" that raised the prospect of scrutinizing judges with "statistically improbable" case-outcome metrics. Dillon had granted asylum in roughly 96 percent of the cases before her, one of the highest rates in the San Francisco court.

In a whistleblower complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on September 10, 2026, Dillon gave a more specific account of retaliation she says she experienced. She alleged that months before her firing, after she resisted a directive requiring immigration judges to grant every ICE request to move a case to a different court venue — which she argued was unlawful and could undermine a noncitizen's right to counsel — her supervising assistant chief immigration judge told her "the White House" was watching the issue and cautioned her against resisting. She separately alleged that her firing came two days after she reported that ICE agents had unlawfully detained an unaccompanied minor who had just appeared in her courtroom. The White House and the Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment on either the 2025 firing or the 2026 complaint.

Updates

2026-09-12 — DOJ called Dillon's retaliation allegations "patently false" [5]

A Justice Department spokesperson told The Independent, "While we do not typically comment on pending litigation or personnel matters, we can tell you that this allegation is patently false," adding that the department was "restoring integrity" to the immigration system after the prior administration. The statement was the department's first on-the-record response to Dillon's September 10, 2026 whistleblower complaint.