Olivia Cassin, an experienced immigration judge, was sitting at her desk a week ago Monday, reading through motions, when she received a short, blunt email from the Justice Department: Attorney General Pam Bondi was firing her. “Your removal is effective today,” the email read. No reason was given for the firing. By the time she finished reading the email announcing her firing, her computer had been shut down and she was unable to even print the email.
On that Monday, November 24, seven judges were fired: five in San Francisco, one in Boston, and Cassin in New York. Then this Monday, the Department of Justice fired eight more judges, all based in New York, including the assistant chief immigration judge Amiena Khan, who has been on the immigration bench since 2010. Last week, shortly after Cassin had been fired, she told me, “They want to dismantle the system.”
It certainly does seem that way.
