A Conversation With Former U.S. Immigration Judge George Pappas

An immigration attorney-turned-judge reflects on his time on the immigration bench amid a wave of judge dismissals.

In recent months, the dismissal of a significant number of U.S. immigration judges has drawn renewed attention to the structure and function of the country’s immigration court system. Immigration courts operate within the U.S. Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, an arrangement that has prompted ongoing debate about the independence of immigration judges and whether structural reform may be warranted.

In this interview for Judicature International, New Zealand Court of Appeal Justice DAVID COLLINS, chair of the publication’s editorial board, speaks with former U.S. immigration judge GEORGE PAPPAS. Pappas served on the immigration bench from 2023 until his removal from the position in 2025, and here he discusses his experience as a judge, the immigration court system, and the broader questions its structure raises for judicial independence.

Editorial note: This interview reflects the interviewee’s personal experiences and views. The opinions expressed are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Bolch Judicial Institute. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

JUSTICE DAVID COLLINS: George, thank you so much for making the time to speak to us. Your story is of great interest to judges around the world. Let’s begin by asking you to explain the structure of the U.S.immigration court system and the role that immigration judges play.

GEORGE PAPPAS: The structure of the immigration courts is different than what most people think. If you’re thinking in terms of the separation of powers, the immigration courts are not part of the judiciary. They are situated in the executive branch of the U.S. government. The immigration courts fall under the Executive Office for Immigration Review, an agency of the U.S. Department of Justice [DOJ]. The DOJ is headed by the attorney general, who is appointed by the president.

So, because of that location, immigration judges can be fired under the separation of powers. They can be pressured. They can be influenced. In fact, the appellate body, the Board of Immigration of Appeals, which is the highest administrative appeal court for immigration, is also situated within the DOJ. The entire administrative judicial role of immigration courts is within the DOJ.

JUSTICE COLLINS: In your experience, how has this structure influenced immigration judges?

PAPPAS: It has a huge impact. Since January of 2025, we have seen significant changes to the immigration court system in the United States that, in my view, raise serious concerns about due process protections in immigration proceedings.

In January 2025, there were roughly 700 immigration judges nationwide. As of now, more than 110 immigration judges have been fired. First, they went after probationary judges. Immigration judges have a two‑year probationary period, and historically, most of them go on to become permanent judges. Recently, however, a number of probationary judges have been terminated without cause. One of those judges has now filed suit alleging that newer judges were targeted. Many of the judges affected had previously represented immigrants in private practice or worked with nonprofit organizations.

So you’ve had a complete removal of a huge swath of judges. In response, the government has begun using temporary immigration judges, including military lawyers, a move that has drawn criticism from bar associations and immigration advocates. The effect has been dramatic. Historically, asylum grant rates in immigration court have hovered around one‑third to two‑fifths of cases nationwide, but recent reporting suggests approval rates may have dropped sharply in some recent months, falling to roughly 7% nationwide in February 2026.

Because of where the immigration court is situated, the Executive Office for Immigration Review [EOIR] has been able to exert direct and indirect pressure on judges, particularly regarding asylum. In April 2025, its acting director, Sirce Owen, issued a pretermission memo telling immigration judges nationwide that if an asylum application was prima facie deficient, judges were encouraged — under the banner of efficiency — to order removal without holding a hearing on the merits. In my view, that memo was deeply problematic because other guidance from the same agency states that respondents should be given an opportunity to correct omissions in their applications rather than having their cases terminated outright.

I’m Exhibit A for the kind of pressure judges were under. When ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] began appearing in courthouses last May, I was instructed to grant certain motions to dismiss without applying the usual ten‑day response period. To me, that directive raised concerns about fairness and judicial neutrality. I did not follow it. I asked the assistant chief judge, “Are you asking me to just rubber‑stamp these motions?” I was told that unless the motions were defective, they should be granted. Only later did I learn that similar instructions had been circulated more broadly nationwide.

The practical effect was that, if those motions were granted, respondents could walk out of the courtroom and be immediately arrested and detained. To me, that raised serious concerns about the appearance of judicial neutrality.

Then, in a June 27 memo from Acting EOIR Director Owen, judges were warned that some of us were showing bias in our rulings and that those judges should consider finding another career or risk being fired.

JUSTICE COLLINS: Could you please share your professional experience? How did you end up in this role?

PAPPAS: I was in private practice for 20 years prior to becoming a judge in July of 2023. I ran my own law firm, representing people in immigration proceedings or with immigration applications. I represented clients nationwide. By the time I got to be an immigration judge, I had 20 years behind me, and the timing was right for me to leverage that experience to put it on the bench. Quite frankly, I saw many judges who I thought were not good judges on the bench.

I really felt I could contribute with my experience as well as my empathy for both what immigrants were going through and what private attorneys needed to do to do their jobs well. I really felt that I was in the perfect place at the perfect time to be a good judge to promote due process and fair hearings. I’m proud to say that’s what I did all the way up to July 11, 2025.

JUSTICE COLLINS: What were the circumstances around your removal?

PAPPAS: They were identical to everyone else who has been removed. All of us have been removed as judges subject to Article II of the U.S. Constitution, which, according to the White House, gives them unlimited authority to remove any federal officer or employee at will without cause. Notwithstanding that the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 is federal legislation that protects against discrimination and protects civil servants, we were all, and continue to be, removed under Article II. The White House and the Attorney General feel that this gives them unlimited authority to terminate any federal employee without cause.

JUSTICE COLLINS: An Article II judge is quite different from an Article III judge in terms of independence and the ability to remove an Article III judge, is that correct?

PAPPAS: That’s absolutely correct. Article III judges are part of the judiciary. They have tenure, and the president cannot remove them. They can be impeached if there are some really bad actions, but they are protected. We are not Article III judges; we fall under the executive; while Article II of the Constitution establishes the executive branch, headed by the president, there is no formal legal category called an “Article II judge.” We can be terminated at will. That’s the difference. One has protection; one does not. One is part of the judiciary; one is not.

JUSTICE COLLINS: What questions do you think your experience raises about institutional design and the protections for adjudicating Article II judges?

PAPPAS: Moving forward, immigration judges need to be removed from the executive branch. Otherwise, this problem will persist. The courts have to be closed off from the executive branch and moved into either Article I, like the tax court or the patent court, or Article III, like our federal courts: the U.S. district courts, circuit courts of appeals, and the Supreme Court. Unless immigration courts become truly independent, they will always be subject to policy pressures.

JUSTICE COLLINS: Do you think there’s much appetite for such a change?

PAPPAS: That change can only occur with legislation. It’s a political issue that has to be solved at the ballot box through Congress.

Hopefully, that will happen sooner rather than later. This pressure to remove the immigration courts is not new. We’ve been advocating as attorneys for years to remove these immigration courts from the executive branch. The pressure on judges is not new, but from my perspective, the scale of the pressure in recent years has been greater than before.

The long-term solution is to structurally remove the immigration courts from the executive branch. That’s the only way we’re going to have truly independent immigration courts in the United States.

JUSTICE COLLINS: What sort of an impact has this had on the morale of those judges who have remained? How do your former colleagues feel?

PAPPAS: By default, the job of an immigration judge has a lot of stress. We have to spend time preparing for cases, three to six a day. You don’t just go to the bench and hear the case. You have to have time with the file, read the briefs, become familiar with the issues. By the time you sit on the bench, you know what the issues are, you know what the facts are, but you want to hear testimony. That is 8:30 to 4:30, nonstop, except for a brief lunch.

Most of us can barely stay awake at 4:30 because of the level of attention the job requires. There is no downtime. You are on all the time.

Not only that, you have to produce oral decisions after each hearing. I’m going to dictate an oral decision anywhere between 30 minutes and 40 minutes. It’s a detailed decision. It’s a reasoned decision. It’s not a yes or no. So, that takes alot of mental energy. That’s the baseline.

When you mix political interference or politics on top of their roles, then you see the pressure not only increase manifold, but then you start seeing morale plummet. When we started seeing our colleagues get fired, morale just went down everytime it happened. Well-trained, excellent judges were being terminated for no reason, and it was a horror to watch.

In my court, the Chelmsford Immigration Court in Massachusetts, after watching many of my colleagues being terminated, I refer to my court as the Chelmsford Titanic. I was determined to be on the Titanic until she went down, and so I was there until the very end. People asked, “Why didn’t you jump ship? You knew you going to be fired.” And I said, “No, I’m going to stay as long as I can and do as much good as I can in terms of fair hearings, due process, because I know when I’m replaced, that’s not going to happen.”

Morale plummeted, especially after April. You have to realize, on Inauguration Day, our entire leadership was fired. Our chief judge was fired, the acting director was fired, the general counsel was fired, and other officials were hired, all in one sweep. Within two to three weeks, more judges were fired. By the time we got to April, we knew that we were basically heading toward the rocks in terms of being able to preside long-term on the bench. It obviously affected morale. Trying to do a difficult job with that kind of morale pressure is just hard to describe in words.

JUSTICE COLLINS: What about public confidence in the whole process? How has that been affected?

PAPPAS: The public is not totally aware of what’s happening with immigrants or immigration. At the beginning of 2025, very few members of the public were paying attention to immigration courts; they were a specialized section of the government.

Over time, the publicity and the coverage of the terminations became public because, at the same time, there were broader debates and changes affecting several federal institutions. In that context, developments in the immigration courts received increasing public attention.

What I try to do, and I’m still one of the few, is tell the public this is not an immigration issue. And that finally crystallized when we had the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, when ICE was there. Once we learned that these officers were not being trained properly, how they were treating people who were protesting in a non-violent way, that is probably the shining star, the resistance to ICE across the country.

The public finally realized that the dismantling of immigration courts was no longer just an immigration issue. It was a civil liberties issue that spread to all Americans. The public perception changed, especially after Minneapolis.

JUSTICE COLLINS: What lessons might this episode hold for other jurisdictions, do you think?

PAPPAS: By default, if a jurisdiction says it believes in the rule of law, if it is a constitutional democracy, they have to give the judiciary real powers that are independent of policy or political pressures. That’s the baseline. You have to have an independent judiciary in order to have real decisions untainted by policy pressures.

Fortunately, and the world can still see this, our U.S. district courts and courts of appeals have continued to play a critical role in reviewing executive actions and maintaining constitutional checks and balances.

Some commentators have also expressed concerns about the Supreme Court’s increasing use of emergency or summary orders, what has been called the “shadow docket.”

The lessons that need to be drawn outside the United States, if you believe in the rule of law, if you have a constitutional democracy, it can only survive and have the efficacy, through the public if it’s seen to be truly independent. If it’s seen to be politicized, or if it can be manipulated by policy, then the Constitution becomes a sham.

There are many so-called constitutional countries in this world where democracy doesn’t pervade. Nobody’s perfect, but if you don’t have an independent court that can review an issue on its merits between the parties and make a reasoned decision without the pressure, influence, threat, and interference by government officials, then you’re not going to have a constitutional democracy.

In terms of the role of the courts, they are critical to any democracy, and the courts’ efficacy and public respect promote the rule of law. If we don’t have that respect and efficacy, you’re not going to have a democracy.

JUSTICE COLLINS: Thank you, George, for sharing your experience and insights.