DOJ Fires Black Immigration Judge in the Ongoing Purge of Trump Hires: Pieters Says Trump Ties Irked ‘sick’ Liberals, Made Him a Target

DOJ fires Black immigration judge in the ongoing purge of Trump hires:

Pieters says Trump ties irked ‘sick’ liberals, made him a target

Edwin Pieters is searching for reasons why the Biden administration fired him as an immigration judge.

He said he got satisfactory reviews during his time as a judge. And his decisions were roughly 50-50 in terms of approvals or rejections, so he doesn’t think that can be it.

The explanation he settles on is that he’s a Black judge brought on by the Trump administration, and that doesn’t fit well with the new team running the Justice Department, which has gone on a tear in dismissing Trump-era judges from the immigration courts.

“To be very candid, the left are sick,” Mr. Pieters told The Washington Times. “If I have an opinion opposed to yours, all of a sudden I become the enemy. That whole school of thought, and then being a Black man, a New York prosecutor. The advocacy groups made it clear Biden should not be hiring from the background of prosecutors.”

Mr. Pieters was hired under the Trump administration but wasn’t installed until the Biden administration. He had nearly two years on the job, which is when the probationary period ends and he would be “converted” into a permanent position.

But he was called in earlier this month and told he was out.

He said his supervisors told him his “performance” was not up to par. He questioned how that could be, given his satisfactory evaluations.

Mr. Pieters said the Executive Office of Immigration Review, the Justice Department agency that runs the immigration courts, investigated him after a lawyer complained about his Twitter account. The Office of Special Counsel also probed him for a Hatch Act violation — conducting politics while on the job — because of Twitter posts complaining about Democratic politicians.

He got a warning from the OSC, but no discipline was recommended. He said he never heard any outcome to the first complaint.

Immigration judges are not part of the regular court system, do not receive Senate confirmation and are not tenured for life. They are instead civil servants in the Justice Department, though they operate on similar principles of evidence and justice and courtroom arguments as other judges.

Their duties include ruling on asylum cases and other defenses illegal immigrants mount when they are facing deportation.

Mr. Pieters said when he joined the bench in 2021, he was given clear signals by colleagues that the way to stay in the agency’s good graces was to “grant everything.”

“This was advice on several occasions,” he told The Times.

He said that conflicted with his belief that a judge was there to “see justice done.” —>READ MORE HERE

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