Since President Donald Trump took office in January, his administration has fired New York immigration judges who have been the most likely to grant asylum, causing the average asylum-grant rate to drop to its lowest point in a decade, data analyzed by Documented shows.
As recently as last week, on Dec. 1, the Department of Justice fired at least seven immigration court judges in New York without cause. Three were fired earlier this year, bringing the total number of confirmed firings to ten.
“It sends a very chilling message to any immigration judge to toe the party line,” said New York immigration attorney Ramon Guerra, who has been litigating asylum cases for over a decade. “I would imagine many of these judges are just like, ‘Well, shoot..if I don’t maintain a certain amount of deportations, I’m going to get in trouble.’ ”
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According to government data collected by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), the judges who were fired on Dec. 1 were more likely to grant asylum. On average, they granted asylum 85.5% of the time — a rate more than 20 percent points higher than New York’s average prior to Trump taking office.
Asylum grant rates calculated include whether the asylum seeker was granted another type of relief, like cancellations of removal or adjustment of status. These other types of relief are granted at relatively low rates and were grouped along with asylum because they usually allow for the asylum seeker to remain in the country.
Judges are typically listed in the immigration court directory for 26 Federal Plaza and 290 Broadway — the two immigration courts in New York. By comparing the directories saved by the Internet Archive on January 13, a week before Trump’s inauguration, and the directories from Dec. 5, Documented identified 18 judges who have left the bench this year — ten who have been publicly identified as fired and eight who left for unknown reasons.
With last week’s announcement, the total number of immigration judges fired nationwide has risen to nearly 100, according to the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ), that confirmed the firings with Documented.
In November, Judge Olivia Cassin publicly announced that she was the third New York immigration court judge to be dismissed without cause. Speaking with The New York Times last week, Cassin said Monday’s firings were a “massacre” adding that “the court has been basically eviscerated.”
Analysis of asylum grant rates over time shows that the recent purge of favorable judges has dropped New York’s average asylum grant rate to below 60% — an over 20% drop since 2016.
Guerra believes the current bench is the most hostile towards asylum seekers since he began his practice in 2013. Several of the asylum cases he was currently working on have now been re-assigned to other judges’ dockets.
Unlike other courts in New York, immigration courts fall under the Department of Justice (DOJ). Judges are hired — and fired — by the U.S. Attorney General and employed under the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), not the independent judiciary.
Judges are bound by an immigration court practice manual, but rules on what evidence is required to grant asylum or what precedents exist are up to the DOJ and are constantly changing.
During the previous Trump administration, the DOJ removed precedent that granted asylum to people who had experienced domestic violence. The precedent was eventually reinstated by the Biden administration, and then was altered to be more restrictive by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“What it translates into is judges having enormous power with very little, if any, accountability,” said Guerra.
In New York’s immigration court, the random assignment of a judge can decide an asylum seeker’s fate.
Also Read: ICE Has Done ‘Irreparable Harm’ to Federal Plaza Detainees, Judge Says
“I would say a judge can be the one deciding factor, the determinant factor, on whether or not your client is eligible for relief,” Guerra said.
He told Documented that he often tells his clients: “25% is based on the facts, 25% is based on the law, and 50% is going to be based on your judge.”
Across the 63 judges listed on New York’s immigration court directories in January, there is a 92.6 percentage point spread in asylum grant rates. In other words, between 2020 and the first 11 months of 2025, one judge granted asylum 96.5% of the time, while another only granted asylum at a rate of 3.9%.
Studies show that while access to legal representation is an important factor in asylum cases, in New York’s immigration court, judges with high rates of representation do not always have higher asylum grant rates.
Between 2020 and up until he was fired this September, 98% of asylum seekers who came before Judge David K.S. Kim had legal representation, and he granted asylum or another form of relief 91.6 per cent of the time. During the same time period, 95% of cases adjudicated by Judge Sha Sha Xu’s had legal representation, but only 29% were granted asylum.
Researchers who study the discrepancies in asylum grant rates within immigration courts have noticed that a judge’s work background seems to be correlated to their grant rate — a trend reflected in New York’s immigration courts. Of the 22 judges who used to be prosecutors for ICE, the average asylum grant rate between 2019 and 2024 was 60.6%. For those who used to represent immigrants, the average was 77.8%.
Of the 18 judges who have left the bench since January, only three used to be prosecutors for ICE and 12 represented immigrants before being appointed.
In November, the Department of Justice began a hiring campaign, calling for “Deportation Judges” to “help write the next chapter of American history.” Positions at 26 Federal Plaza and 290 Broadway were advertised.
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“The Trump Administration is calling on YOU to join @TheJusticeDept as a Deportation Judge to restore integrity and honor to our Nation’s Immigration Court system,” wrote Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on X.
For Guerra, the attack on immigration court is only the beginning.
“Immigration is the canary in the coal mine for a bigger, larger issue, which is this administration’s attempt at stripping due process rights…to consolidate his [Trump’s] power.”
