Attorney Stephen Born's calendar is supposed to be full of immigration court appointments.
His small law office in New England currently handles 5,000 immigration cases, many of them assigned to the Chelmsford Immigration Court, just outside Boston.
But on a recent Wednesday afternoon, seven of nine appointments were rescheduled.
The next day, two out of three were pushed.
And the following day, four out of six got delayed.
"The court is not functioning," Born said. He said some of his clients have waited more than a decade for their court hearings.
"Now that's being taken away. So the little light at the end of the tunnel for these people who have been following the American dream and playing by all the rules is increasingly being snuffed."
The Chelmsford Immigration Court opened last year as a way to reduce the backlog on the overloaded Boston court, which used to process immigration cases for much of New England. Chelmsford and Boston are now the only courts located in New England, two of about 70 immigration courts and adjudication centers nationwide.
Eight months into the Trump administration, there are only seven judges listed on the court's website, down from the 21 intended to serve. One of those seven is set to retire in the coming days, NPR has learned. Another has been detailed to review cases in Indianapolis.
NPR spoke with nearly a dozen of the judges assigned to work at the Chelmsford Immigration Court who are no longer there. All attest to a clear pattern: judges vacating their benches, increased political pressure and a growing dread of not knowing if their jobs are safe.
The Chelmsford court has hemorrhaged judges in recent months; many of those hired in the last two years have now been fired or resigned. The judicial vacancies there exacerbate a national backlog of about 3.7 million cases in the immigration court system.
The Trump administration's twin efforts to downsize the federal government and increase immigration arrests are colliding in the immigration system, where immigration courts are run as part of the civil service inside the Department of Justice — apart from the judicial branch, which controls other federal courts.
Postponed day in court
The loss of court judges and staff throws a wrench in the already-limited due process afforded to immigrants seeking relief from deportation, former employees at Chelmsford and lawyers said.
"People know not everybody is going to win," Stephanie Marzouk, an immigration attorney in Boston, said about her clients. "But at least they'll have a chance to have their case heard before a judge who is going to treat them fairly and get some sort of reasoned decision out of it."
But Marzouk and Born said instead of getting their day in court, their clients are seeing cases postponed by years — even as far out as 2029.
In the meantime, those awaiting final resolution could be arrested or deported, as part of the Trump administration's broader effort to boost mass deportations.
"Whatever date I got today, it will definitely be rescheduled again because at this point, there are not enough judges in that court to address the amount of people and cases," said Diecelis Escano, another attorney with cases at Chelmsford.
On July 18, a week after the latest round of dismissals, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the agency immigration courts are in, posted an immigration judge vacancy announcement, which includes Chelmsford as a location.
Kathryn Mattingly, a spokesperson for EOIR, said reducing the immigration court backlog was one of her agency's highest priorities.
"Under this Administration, the total pending caseload of immigration court cases has fallen by more than 391,000 cases," she said, "and EOIR will continue to use all of its resources to adjudicate immigration cases fairly, expeditiously, and uniformly consistent with due process."
Boston is an immigration hotspot
The Chelmsford court is part of a region already feeling pressure from not having enough immigration judges.
White House border czar Tom Homan vowed back in February he would be "bringing hell" to Boston, pledging to crack down on illegal immigration there. It's one of 18 cities the Department of Homeland Security recently labeled a "sanctuary jurisdiction" that "impede enforcement of federal immigration laws."
Immigration lawyers report a growing number of cases that are often time-sensitive.
The International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, the union that represents immigration judges, said Chelmsford is among those courts with the biggest decrease in judges in the nation.
"The court will be there physically, but there will be no judges to hear the cases," union president Matt Biggs said about what could happen if the downsizing trend continues. He said the administration now has 600 judges nationwide, down from 700 at the end of the Biden administration.
Chelmsford opened for business in April 2024 and was meant to reduce the backlog on the overloaded Boston court. In interviews, former court personnel and lawyers estimate some 70,000 immigration cases were transferred from Boston to Chelmsford then.
EOIR at the time said it wanted to add 21 judges to help process more cases, from asylum applications to final approval of deportation orders.
"It was all for nothing"
Nationally, the union has not identified clear patterns over whom the administration is choosing to dismiss.
There have been three rounds of firings, including getting rid of a class of new judges that had not even taken the bench yet. The dismissals included former Homeland Security prosecutors, veterans, decades-long federal employees, and those with years of immigration law experience.
Others have chosen to leave the bench voluntarily in expectation of layoffs or to take advantage of early retirement.
The vacant halls of the court betray the remnants of judges whose names have been swiftly scrubbed from the EOIR website.
Tucked in a corner on the second floor is the name plate for Nancy Griffiths, an immigration judge who left her decades-long job as a judge at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and moved from Phoenix to work at Chelmsford.
"It was such an incredibly proud moment. My family came to Washington for my investiture ceremony. My children robed me," Griffiths said.
She said she will leave her employment in September.
"We were so excited — and a year and a half later, we're scrambling and trying to figure out what to do with our lives and put our lives back together," she said.
Griffiths recalls the "demoralizing" process of helping colleagues pack up their offices after they received termination notices.
"People's lives have been torn upside down and that is a waste," Griffiths said. She said some people moved away from spouses and children, and EOIR spent money on training and building the new court. "That was all for nothing," she said.
Leaving thousands of cases behind
Former Judge Angela Munro received the email in April notifying her that her employment would be terminated and placed on administrative leave — just a few days shy of the end of her two-year probationary period. Munro spent 16 years working at EOIR, first as a law clerk and then at the Board of Immigration Appeals.
"I didn't have blinders on. I knew what was possible," Munro said — given the layoffs of other probationary employees in the federal government. "But I also knew in my mind that I was doing a good job and that immigration judges are supposedly needed."
Munro had about 4,000 cases on her docket, she said, and had completed about 1,000. She describes her dismissal as "abrupt and traumatic." She returned to her desk around 3 p.m. after issuing what ended up being her final oral decision on an asylum case. That's when she saw an email asking her to pack up her office and be out that day.
Each laid-off or departing judge leaves about 4,000 cases each for their colleagues to pick up, NPR found in its interviews. Tens of thousands of cases are now estimated to have been affected by the loss of judges at Chelmsford.
Former Judge Jenny Beverly, who left EOIR in July, said she was preparing to be assigned thousands of extra cases on behalf of judges who had been let go.
"I wanted to be a part of the system to help move things along," Beverly said about her reasons for joining the Chelmsford court.
Beverly commuted up to two hours each way from her home in Maine to adjudicate cases in Chelmsford. Her decision to leave came after leaders at EOIR requested that she shift her workload to handle cases in New Jersey to focus on those already in detention.
"Here I was sitting in Massachusetts, but being asked on short notice to handle cases in New Jersey. And according to my boss, it was because EOIR was prioritizing those cases instead," Beverly said. She shared internal communication with NPR that backed up that request.
"Any immigration judge can hear any case at any time, and adjudicating detained immigration cases remains a high priority for the agency," Mattingly, the EOIR spokesperson, said in response to questions about judges being moved.
Backlogs grow as EOIR dismisses judges
As more people have been placed in detention, and judges have been dismissed, EOIR has strained with the pressure of keeping up with cases. For example, Beverly left EOIR on July 2, but still had two hearings on the electronic TV schedule in the Chelmsford waiting area on display on July 27.
Griffiths, the judge who moved from Phoenix, noted that her own docket included pending cases from 2013 that over the years had bounced from one judge to another.
The judicial vacancies in Chelmsford exacerbate a national backlog of millions of cases in the immigration court system.
The most recent judicial terminations came after Congress approved a mega-spending bill that immediately allocated over $3 billion to the Justice Department for immigration-related activities, including for hiring more immigration judges.
The Homeland Security Department has moved quickly to recruit attorneys who will represent ICE in courts like Chelmsford. But the Justice Department has not launched a similar recruitment campaign to hire more immigration judges, despite posting positions online.
Immigration advocates have raised concerns that without the resources to properly process those arrested, the limited due process afforded to some immigrants is undercut.
"EOIR continues to adjudicate immigration cases fairly, expeditiously, and uniformly consistent with due process," Mattingly told NPR as a response to those concerns.
Judges said that courtroom misconduct, complaints from private or government attorneys, or an inability to manage caseload were among the reasons judges were dismissed in the past.
But the most recent groups of terminated judges have been left to guess why they were not kept on beyond their two-year probationary period.
Instead of reasons specific to them, each got a short email — similar to one sent to other laid-off employees at the Justice Department and other agencies.
"Pursuant to Article II of the Constitution, the Attorney General has decided not to extend your term or convert it to a permanent appointment," according to the emails shared with NPR.
"It was my silent protest"
George Pappas was among the latest judges to be dismissed in July. He listened to cases until his last day but had been expecting the termination notice since the April round of firings — and had already cleared out his office in preparation.
"Anything that was still hanging on my walls was taken down. I took out all my personal belongings," Pappas said. "From that point forward, I worked in a blank room and it was my way of taking control of that which I could control. It was my silent protest."
Sitting in a nearly empty apartment, he prepared to move back home to North Carolina. He closed his 20-year independent practice to serve as an immigration judge, where he said he wanted to make a dent in the backlog of cases.
"I didn't grant asylum to everybody, but when I did, I changed somebody's life," he said. The day he got his notice, he said, he had spent several hours listening to a case where in the end he granted a cancellation of removal, a protection from deportation that allows people to pursue a green card.
"It was one of the best decisions I made," he said, recalling that it was also one of the most difficult cases of his tenure. "I sort of felt like a supernova: I was brightest at the very end and then the hammer came down and fired me."
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