Fired immigration judge gives inside look at Trump’s deportation agenda

[0:00] Since returning to office, President Trump has made sweeping changes to the legal immigration [0:04] system, including speeding up deportations and tamping down on asylum seekers. [0:09] The Justice Department has also fired more than 100 sitting immigration judges [0:14] and is now advertising to hire so-called deportation judges in their place. [0:19] Allie Rogan recently spoke with one of the fired judges. [0:23] Jeremiah Johnson served as an immigration judge in San Francisco for eight years. [0:28] He was appointed during President Trump's first term. [0:32] In November, he was fired. [0:34] Johnson also serves as the executive vice president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. [0:39] And since his firing, he's been traveling south of the U.S. border to understand the implications [0:45] of his and other judges' decisions. [0:48] Judge Johnson, thank you so much for joining me. [0:51] President Trump has pursued an aggressive agenda of deportations and detentions since taking office. [0:57] How did that political agenda impact the work that you and your colleagues were doing in the courts? [1:05] What you saw were judges were given little time to make those important decisions. [1:09] You saw an increase in cases. [1:12] You saw pressure to decide cases. [1:16] Dockets ballooned. [1:17] So it didn't allow judges the opportunity to take the time to consider the evidence and get everything right. [1:24] For example, in before July of the past year, I was hearing three individual cases a day. [1:30] That included testimony, reading through evidence, submitted, and making a decision. [1:36] In July, I was three additional detained docket cases were added to my docket. [1:42] So I was hearing six cases a day. [1:44] The stakes couldn't be higher. [1:45] These were people that were fleeing their countries, claiming that they would be murdered, killed, raped, harmed in their home countries. [1:53] So you had to spend the time to make sure you got it right. [1:57] How were you fired? [1:59] And were you given any reason? [2:01] I was given no reason. [2:02] It was an afternoon. [2:03] I had heard my afternoon case on the bench. [2:07] And I learned that other judges in San Francisco had been fired. [2:10] I then went to my chambers and logged on and saw an email with the subject line termination. [2:15] And before I could even print that letter, I was shut out of the computer and escorted out of the building. [2:21] President Trump has tried to block all asylum seekers from applying at the border. [2:27] He's been blocked several times by the courts. [2:30] But do you think he's ultimately going to succeed? [2:33] And what would be the implications if he were to succeed? [2:36] Well, I don't know what if he will ultimately succeed, but the law does allow for people who are in the United States to apply for asylum in the United States. [2:47] You know, what I worry about is that the access to this important protection is being limited. [2:56] And that's being limited in a number of ways, not just by the inability to apply for asylum, but those who are also here in the United States who have applied to have their cases terminated or pre-termitted or denied without a full hearing on their asylum application. [3:12] Another change to immigration policy under this Trump administration is the ability to hold migrants without bond, meaning that they're held for much longer periods in detention centers, which are often overcrowded, unsanitary. [3:28] How is that affecting the experience of migrants who are seeking to get their asylum cases through court? [3:35] Well, it impacts it by them returning to their country that they claim fear and that they fear of being harmed. [3:42] The impacts on them are tremendous. [3:45] I do recall an instance where a woman had entered the United States legally. [3:50] She had applied for admission into the United States. [3:52] She had been held in detention for over eight months. [3:56] And by the time she got to my individual hearing docket, she requested to be returned to her home country. [4:02] She no longer could bear the harm that she experienced in detention facilities. [4:09] And so we had that case had to be dismissed and terminated. [4:13] And she returned to her home country despite having a viable application for asylum. [4:19] We talk a lot about how the asylum process works on this side of the border. [4:23] Since you've been fired, you've been spending time traveling to the other side of the border to understand the implications of your and your colleagues' decisions. [4:31] You recently got back from a trip. [4:33] What have those travels been like? [4:34] They've been very eye-opening and a very enriching experience. [4:38] For many years, people have traveled all over the world to get to my courtroom in San Francisco and tell me stories about the harm they suffered and why they came to the United States. [4:49] It was an opportunity for me to retrace those steps and go on the same path and meet those, not the same individual, but other people who are fleeing their country or migrants or asylum seekers and see them in a different context. [5:05] The last day, we were talking about before I was fired, the case I heard was a family of four indigenous Guatemalan, and I had granted that case. [5:15] And you hear a lot about asylum cases not being real or there's talk in the administration about the eligibility requirements, but when I went back to that village and saw the grave of the brother who was killed in the attack and the scars on the father's face, I knew what I had done that day in July in the courtroom was correct. [5:38] Judge Jeremiah Johnson, thank you so much for sharing your views. [5:41] Thank you very much for having me. [5:43] Support journalism you trust, support PBS news, donate now or even better start a monthly contribution today.