Trump administration fires 2 judges who blocked deportations of anti-Israel protesters

The detentions of Mahdawi and Öztürk last year were part of a broader immigration crackdown by the Trump administration on non-citizens who had participated in campus anti-Israel protests.

By Grace Gilson, JTA

The Trump administration on Friday fired two judges who blocked the deportations of international students involved in anti-Israel activism.

One of the judges, Roopal Patel, a Boston immigration court judge, oversaw the Trump administration’s immigration case against Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish Tufts University doctoral student who was detained by ICE agents on the street in Somerville last March.

In February, Patel found there were no grounds to deport her, following a months-long legal battle with the Trump administration and opposition to her arrest from Jewish students and groups.

The other judge fired on Friday, Nina Froes of Chelmsford, Massachusetts, blocked the deportation of Mohsen Mahdawi, an anti-Israel student protester at Columbia University and green card holder from Judea and Samaria, in February.

Froes told the New York Times that she had “fully expected” her firing and said she was unsure if ruling against Mahdawi could have changed the outcome.

“I don’t know what’s in the minds of other people,” Froes said. “But I can’t imagine it was helpful.”

The firings of the judges come as the Trump administration has dismissed over 100 immigration judges and hired more than 140 permanent and temporary judges seen as more aligned with the president’s immigration agenda, according to the New York Times.

The detentions of Mahdawi and Öztürk last year were part of a broader immigration crackdown by the Trump administration on non-citizens who had participated in campus anti-Israel protests that drew allegations of antisemitism.

Many of those detained as part of the crackdown were later shielded from immediate removal after judges blocked the federal government’s attempts to deport them, including Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia graduate and protest leader.

On Friday, the Board of Immigration Appeals denied Khalil’s bid to dismiss his deportation case, which remains ongoing. (Khalil called the board “biased and politically motivated” following the ruling.)

Last month, the last person still detained in the Trump administration’s crackdown on anti-Israel campus protests, Leqaa Kordia, was released from ICE custody.