Sen. Dick Durbin on Thursday sent U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi a letter demanding answers about the recent firings of 17 federal immigration judges, calling their terminations “an ill-timed vendetta” that is wasting taxpayer dollars.
“The Trump Administration has engaged in an unprecedented attack on due process and the rule of law, and the only plausible explanation for firing immigration judges and placing additional strain on overburdened immigration courts is a political one,” Durbin writes in the letter, which reminds Bondi of the judges’ protections from politicized hirings and firings.
Durbin, who serves as ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been outspoken about Jennifer Peyton, a former assistant chief immigration judge in Chicago, who was fired on July 3 via email, about two weeks after Durbin met with her at a Chicago immigration court.
That visit triggered an email to Peyton from the Justice Department that stated judges “should not directly communicate with members of Congress and congressional staff.” Durbin has called it an “abuse of power by the administration to punish a non-political judge simply for doing her job.”
Durbin stood alongside Peyton and another terminated judge, Carla Espinoza, earlier this month in questioning their firings and demanding transparency from the Trump administration.
Durbin’s letter to Bondi specifically mentions Peyton, writing “there is no better example of the current efforts to erode judicial independence than” Peyton’s “politicized firing.”
“These intimidation tactics and Judge Peyton’s subsequent firing are unacceptable,” Durbin writes. “All federal employees have a fundamental right to directly engage with Congress, individually or collectively, without interference.”
According to the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, the union representing immigration court judges, 15 of the 17 immigration judges were fired without cause, the letter reads. Since the start of the Trump administration, 103 judges have been fired or opted to take a deferred resignation offer. The firings happened in California, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Texas, Utah and Virginia.
Durbin initially sent Bondi a letter on March 28, which raised concerns over the firings. But his letter on Thursday, which requests a response by Sept. 4, continues to question Bondi on the number of judges, immigration court staff and Board of Immigration Appeals members who have been dismissed, fired or reassigned since Jan. 20.
Durbin is also asking Bondi for the individual justifications for their dismissals or reassignments; what the plans are for rehiring and for reducing the immigration court backlog, and about her plan to apply expedited removal for people currently in removal proceedings.
Immigration court judges are dealing with a staggering 3.5 million backlog in cases at a time when the Trump administration is continuing its mass deportation plight. Durbin has spent much of this year trying to stand up to Trump-appointed judges, including Emil Bove, a top Justice Department official and one of Trump’s former personal attorneys, who last month was granted a lifetime appointment as an appellate judge despite whistleblowers accusing him of improperly overseeing cases for the administration.