Judge Ila Deiss, who had been working for San Francisco’s immigration court since 2017, was fired Thursday, according to the San Francisco Immigration Court.
Judges Roger Dinh, Elisa Brasil and Jami Vigil were all fired in April, according to the San Francisco Immigration Court. That was one month shy of the standard two-year probationary period which, for all three judges, would have ended in May 2025.
That leaves a total of nine vacancies across 26 courtrooms, according to the San Francisco Immigration Court.
Nationwide, at least 17 immigration court judges across 10 states have been fired since Monday, according a news release from the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, the union that represents immigration court judges.
Three of the four San Francisco judges approved asylum cases at higher rates than the national average of 42.3 percent, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks asylum approval data.
Since 2019, Deiss had granted asylum or another form of relief in 93.7 percent of all cases she heard.
Brasil has granted asylum or another form of relief in 98.7 percent of cases, and Vigil in 97 percent of cases.
Dinh only granted asylum in 34.6 percent of cases — the only one of the four judges to be below the national rate.
The Executive Office for Immigration Review declined Friday to comment on all four cases.
The firings come as ICE has routinely arrested asylum seekers out of court hearings, including three people Friday.
Milli Atkinson, an immigration specialist with the Bar Association of San Francisco, told Mission Local that another judge, Kyra Lilien, was fired this week in the Concord Immigration Court.
Easier to deport people who followed all the rules they were told they must follow when you stack the court with sycophants who will deport all, and who are believers in the racist replacement theory stuff Republicans are insisting is happening.
I wish Trump could fire some of our local judges like Gerardo Sandoval, who lets every criminal out to attack us again.
Good job clearing out these judges. 93.7% of applicants before one judge got asylum? She clearly has an agenda and it’s not putting the United States’ needs, and laws, first.