"Kyra Lilien, who was hired in 2023, was presiding in a courtroom in Concord, Calif., in July when she paused the hearing of an immigrant seeking asylum to read an email. "I told them that we were not going to have a hearing because I had just been fired," Lilien said. Present in the court was a court interpreter and an attorney for the Department of Homeland Security. "They asked me if I was joking.""
"It was her two-year anniversary in the position and she was between hearings when she got the email. "My voice was shaking. My hands were shaking. My mind was racing. And I gave the decision and I dismissed everyone without mentioning anything," Petit said. One decision that day was to deny asylum, and the other was a partial denial, each for a different member of one immigrant family, she recalled."
"Tania Nemer was hired as a judge at the Cleveland immigration court in 2023. She had about 30 or 40 immigrants, a DHS attorney and staff in her court one morning in February. She had just finished explaining rights and responsibilities to the group when her door opened and her manager asked her to come with him. She was later escorted out of the building."
Three immigration judges hired in 2023 were fired abruptly while on duty. Kyra Lilien paused a July hearing in Concord, Calif., read an email and announced that she had been fired in front of a court interpreter and a Department of Homeland Security attorney. Anam Petit, in Annandale, Va., received a termination email on her two-year anniversary, described shaking and racing thoughts, and dismissed multiple cases including asylum denials. Tania Nemer, in Cleveland, had just explained rights and responsibilities to a group when a manager escorted her out; she said no one gave a reason. Twelve additional judges were fired later that month.
Read at www.npr.org
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]