The Trump administration is effectively declaring that the nation’s roughly 700 immigration judges can no longer count on civil service rules that safeguard their independence by protecting them from arbitrary removal, according to a Department of Justice memo that was sent to the judges. The memo from DOJ—which oversees the immigration courts—was flagged for me by the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, or IFPTE, the judges’ union, which believes this will make it far easier to fire judges without cause.

The judges and their representatives fear that this is designed to pave the way for the removal of judges who don’t consistently rule against migrants in deportation and asylum cases—and thus frustrate Trump and his hard-line immigration advisers. Replacing them with judges who will more reliably rule against migrants could theoretically speed up the pace of deportations.

“What they want to do is fire immigration judges that don’t issue rulings to their liking,” said Matthew Biggs, the president of IFPTE, “and replace them with judges that will simply rubber-stamp what President Trump wants.”

This represents a serious escalation of Trump’s assault on the immigration system. Last month, DOJ fired 20 immigration judges with no public rationale; those were largely probationary officials. Then, last week, DOJ let it be known that it will no longer observe restrictions that constrain the removal of administrative law judges, a category that decides federal government agency cases and doesn’t include most immigration judges.

But now, DOJ is signaling that it will disregard restrictions on removal for the broad category of immigration judges as well, according to the DOJ memo, which was addressed to all employees of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EOIR, the agency within the DOJ that oversees the immigration courts. The memo acknowledges that under current law, these judges benefit from “multiple layers of for-cause removal restrictions,” meaning they can’t be fired at will. But it adds that EOIR “may decline to recognize those restrictions if they are determined to be unconstitutional.”

Translated into plain English, this means that if restrictions on removing immigration judges are “determined” by the DOJ to be unconstitutional, they will no longer apply, immigration lawyers say. It’s only a matter of time until this “determination” is made.

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