A number of immigration judges have accepted government payout offers to leave, a union official said on Thursday, further depleting an overwhelmed system that President Trump had promised to fortify.
A total of 85 employees, including 18 judges, at the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review accepted the government’s deferred resignation offer or early retirement. The Trump administration previously fired 29 others from that office, according to the union official, including the office’s top leaders. About 40 of the more than 700 immigration judges in place when Mr. Trump took office have now been fired or agreed to leave.
The judges, who are part of the administrative court system under the Justice Department rather than part of the judicial branch, make decisions about asylum claims and have the power to order someone removed from the country. Mr. Trump campaigned on a promise to hire more of them to address a growing backlog that can make cases stretch for years.
A loss of immigration judges is likely to undercut Mr. Trump’s efforts to deport millions of immigrants, since delays in adjudicating immigration claims contribute to the number of undocumented immigrants living in the United States while waiting for their cases to be resolved.
“Donald Trump ran for office promising to boost deportations, but as president, his administration’s policies are actually decreasing the number of immigration judges and judge teams who hold deportation hearings,” Matthew Biggs, the president of the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers, said in a statement on Thursday.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On average, each judge handles 500 to 700 cases a year. The court has a backlog of more than 3.7 million cases, according to data collected by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
The backlog is a byproduct of an immigration system under strain for decades. Since it can be years before an asylum seeker, for example, appears in court, many immigrants start putting down roots and growing their families in communities across the country.
“Immigration judges are hard to replace given their specialized knowledge and legal experience,” Mr. Biggs said. “It takes at least a year to recruit, hire, train and conduct a background check on a new judge.”
Both Democrats and Republicans have supported adding more judges to the system. The administration has also fired judges on the Board of Immigration Appeals.
“This makes no sense,” Mr. Biggs said.
The Justice Department last month issued a memo stating that immigration judges could be fired at will, suggesting more cuts would be coming.