Overview

• Seventeen immigration judges were dismissed without cause on July 11 and 14, cutting the bench from about 700 to roughly 600 and worsening a 3.7 million-case backlog
• Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons’s July 8 memo effectively bars bond hearings for most undocumented immigrants by mandating detention throughout their removal proceedings
• Since May, ICE agents and Justice Department lawyers have been dismissing cases mid-hearing and immediately arresting migrants in courthouses under expedited removal rules
• On July 16, civil rights groups and affected immigrants filed a class-action suit in Washington, D.C., federal court seeking to block ICE’s courthouse arrest tactics as unconstitutional
• Congress has earmarked $3.3 billion to expand the immigration courts to 800 judges even as critics warn that politicized purges threaten judicial independence and strain detention capacity