Immigration judge purged by Trump sues DOJ for firing women and minorities in favor of white men

A federal immigration judge appointed to the bench in 2023 by Joe Biden and allegedly fired without cause by the Trump administration two years later is suing the government over her termination, alleging she was illegally fired for her sex, race and political views.

In a newly filed discrimination lawsuit, Florence Chamberlin, an experienced attorney and longtime champion for immigrant rights, says Donald Trump’s Department of Justice took exception to her background “advocating for immigrants and immigrant rights prior to the time they were hired” and as a Cuban woman.

Chamberlin contends in her complaint that her membership in the Democratic Party was also held against her by senior Trump leaders such as White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, who further accused immigrant advocacy organizations and lawyers of “committing immigration fraud and label[ing] them extremists aligned with domestic terrorism.”

On the other side of the coin, numerous immigration judges serving alongside Chamberlin, who had “exclusively prosecutorial immigration law backgrounds or who otherwise had never represented or advocated for non-citizens,” were kept on, according to Chamberlin’s complaint, which names DOJ and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal defense lawyer, as defendants.

Chamberlin’s lawsuit is among at least four recent complaints from terminated judges who have accused the the Justice Department of discriminating against them for their race, gender and political backgrounds.

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The complaints accuse the Justice Department of deliberately targeting judges with Hispanic or Latino, Middle Eastern and Asian backgrounds or their history supporting immigrants’ rights and then replacing them with white men.

Attorney Kevin Owen, who is representing Chamberlin, told The Independent that he has three others cases ready to go.

The DOJ argues that the president is not beholden to Article II of the Constitution, which the administration argues gives the president vast authority to act without oversight from Congress, including when it comes to civil rights laws.

“The president has taken the position that he can fire people because of their age, because of their race, or because they have a disability,” Owen said. “Our view is, the executive branch is not immune from civil rights laws.”

The lawsuits follow a massive upheaval inside the nation’s immigration courts as the Trump administration attempts to deport at least 1 million people from the country each year.

A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to comment to The Independent on pending litigation.

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On September 23, 2023, Chamberlin was appointed to serve as an immigration judge in California, according to her complaint, which was filed Tuesday in San Francisco federal court.

Before she was named to her position within the Justice Department’s Executive Office of Immigration Review, Chamberlain – a Hispanic woman of Cuban descent – spent nearly a quarter-decade defending noncitizens from deportation.

Most recently, Chamberlin was managing director of the Ciudad Juarez office of Kids in Need of Defense.

Immigration judges initially serve a 24-month probationary period, after which their appointments “are routinely converted to permanent positions,” according to her complaint. Within that time, Chamberlin adjudicated 2,714 cases, far exceeding the government’s target of 1,400, and always received the highest possible rating on her performance reviews, according to the complaint.

Shortly after Trump returned to the White House, four women in permanent leadership positions in the immigration court system were terminated, including then-Chief Immigration Judge Sheila McNulty.

Last February, multiple female assistant chief immigration judges were fired amid a series of policy memoranda issued by top immigration court official Sirce E. Owen that Chamberlin’s complaint describes as “hostile toward noncitizens and noncitizen advocacy.”

That same month, Bondi, who was fired by Trump a little more than a year later, released an official DOJ memo laying out a plan to “penalize illegal DEI … preferences.”

Owen subsequently issued a pair of additional memos which took aim at the Biden administration’s judicial appointments, claiming that people of “certain backgrounds” had been afforded favorable treatment and that Trump’s DOJ “committed to rectifying those harms,” the complaint continues.

The memos “laid bare management’s hostility to hiring individuals with immigrants’ rights backgrounds, women, racial and ethnic minorities, and others who may be considered ‘DEI’ hires,” according to Chamberlin’s complaint.

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In the months that followed, more than 100 immigration judges left their posts, The Independent previously reported. Dozens of other judges have also retired or resigned.

Those who were fired included “a disproportionate number” of women and ethnic minorities, according to Chamberlin’s complaint.

She was terminated on September 23.

Immigration judges determine whether immigrants can be deported or granted a form of legal status like asylum. There are more than 70 such immigration courts across the country. But unlike federal district courts, immigration courts and the judges who run them operate under the direction of the Justice Department.

After Trump took office, the Justice Department told judges to immediately dismiss immigrants’ cases, making them easy targets for arrest and removal.

Those strategies have generated scenes of masked federal agents patrolling courthouse hallways and hauling away immigrants the moment they leave their hearings.

The administration has also instructed immigration court judges to deny bond to immigrants, upending decades of precedent and keeping people in detention for weeks or months no matter how long they have lived in the country or whether they have a criminal record.

At the same time, the Justice Department has significantly lowered the bar for new “temporary” hires to fill those roles, with the administration giving its handpicked judges broad discretion to make crucial decisions for tens of thousands of people whose future in the U.S. is at risk.

The Department of Defense additionally approved sending up to 600 military lawyers to immigration courts to “augment existing resources to help further combat a backlog of cases by presiding over immigration hearings,” The Independent previously reported.

Chamberlin says her firing violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as well as her First Amendment right to freedom of expression.

She has “suffered and continues to suffer lost earnings and benefits, pain, suffering, humiliation and mental distress” and is seeking reinstatement and compensatory damages, along with lost pay and benefits.

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