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DOJ fires six immigration judges, including two who blocked deportations of Öztürk and Mahdawi

The Justice Department on April 10, 2026 fired six immigration judges, among them Boston judge Roopal Patel, who ruled in January that the government had no grounds to deport Tufts doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk, and Chelmsford, Massachusetts judge Nina Froes, who in February dismissed deportation proceedings against Columbia activist Mohsen Mahdawi. Both judges were dismissed by email mid-hearing near the end of their probationary periods, in a purge in which the National Association of Immigration Judges says at least 113 of roughly 750 immigration judges have been fired since January 2025.

Part of: Trump Administration Attacks on Judicial Independence

Jurisdiction
Federal
Location
Washington, D.C.

Abuses documented

Actors

On Friday, April 10, 2026, the Justice Department fired six immigration judges — three in Massachusetts and others sitting in New York and California immigration courts. Among them were Judge Roopal Patel of Boston's immigration court and Judge Nina Froes of the Chelmsford, Massachusetts court, both appointed under the Biden administration and both nearing the end of the standard two-year probationary period. Each was dismissed by email in the middle of a hearing: Patel received notice that her position would not be "converted" to permanent status during a break in an asylum hearing, while Froes had to suspend a cross-examination and was escorted from her office. The National Association of Immigration Judges confirmed the Friday removals; the Executive Office for Immigration Review said it does not comment on personnel matters and denied the firings were related to particular cases.

Patel and Froes had each dismissed one of the administration's marquee deportation cases against pro-Palestinian student activists. On January 29, Patel ruled that the Department of Homeland Security had not proved that Rümeysa Öztürk — the Tufts doctoral student detained by masked ICE agents in 2025 after co-authoring an op-ed critical of her university's response to the war in Gaza — should be deported following Secretary of State Marco Rubio's revocation of her visa. In February, Froes dismissed removal proceedings against Columbia University activist and green-card holder Mohsen Mahdawi, finding the government had failed to properly certify the Rubio memorandum it offered as evidence. Both rulings were under appeal by the government when the judges were fired; the Board of Immigration Appeals later reinstated the Mahdawi proceedings (archived separately).

Immigration judges are Justice Department employees fired by the Attorney General, a structural vulnerability that these removals placed in sharp relief. According to the National Association of Immigration Judges, at least 113 of roughly 750 immigration judges have been fired since January 2025, with roughly 100 more quitting or retiring, while the department hired over 140 replacements — some with backgrounds as DHS or ICE attorneys. Patel told GBH News the firings appear "informed by a kind of political agenda" to reshape the immigration bench toward mass deportations, though she allowed that, given the pattern, she might have been fired however she had ruled. What distinguishes the April 10 round is its precision: it removed exactly the judges who had dismissed the administration's highest-profile student-activist cases, a signal to sitting judges about the cost of ruling against the government.

Why we recorded this

People who decide cases are supposed to rule on the record in front of them without fear of losing their jobs for deciding against the government — and while immigration judges are Justice Department employees rather than independent Article III judges, the same principle of impartial adjudication applies to them. When judges are dismissed soon after ruling against the administration in high-profile cases, it signals to every remaining judge the cost of an unwelcome decision, which is how fair adjudication erodes from the inside. We record this because the integrity of any tribunal depends on judges being free to apply the law as they see it, and removals tied closely to particular rulings are a documented pressure on that independence.

Sources

  1. Immigration judges fired after ruling against deporting student activists — The New York Times primary accessed June 6, 2026
  2. Trump administration fires Boston immigration judge who issued ruling in Öztürk case — WBUR primary accessed June 6, 2026
  3. Immigration judges who ruled in Öztürk, Mahdawi cases fired — GBH News investigative accessed June 6, 2026

See also