The other, Carmen Maria Rey Caldas, received her termination notice last month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAll I\u2019ve ever done is immigration,\u201d Rey Caldas said, describing her own immigration to the United States from Spain at age 11, and having to report to 26 Federal Plaza regularly to handle paperwork with her mother while growing up in Queens.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cImmigration is very much my area of expertise, but it\u2019s also my area of deep interest, and that interest arises initially from my own personal experiences as an immigrant to New York.\u201d<\/p>\n
The layoffs come as the Trump administration is racing to reshape the nation\u2019s immigration courts, firing some judges while also reassigning hundreds of military judges to serve there to try and cut down an historic backlog, with more than 3.7 million cases pending<\/a>.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n A spokesperson for the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR),<\/a> declined to comment on the layoffs. \u00a0This week, EOIR announced<\/a> it has reduced the backlog by nearly a half a million cases since Trump took office.\u00a0<\/p>\n A spokesperson for International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, the union representing immigration judges, described the situation \u2014 that military judges with limited training are being asked to step in even as more than 100 immigration judges with years of experience have been fired or accepted deferred resignations since Trump took office \u2014 as \u201cabsurd.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re planning two weeks of training for military attorneys who have zero immigration experience, zero experience with juveniles,\u201d a spokesperson said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to open the door to a lot of appeals. It may even slow the backlog.\u201d<\/p>\n Kim, who immigrated from South Korea at age 16, said the recent layoffs seemed to fly in the face of the effort to curb the backlogs.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you keep firing immigration judges who are fully trained and experienced, how can you expect to reduce the backlogs,\u201d Kim wondered. \u201cIt\u2019s only going to worsen the backlogs.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear why Kim and Rey Caldas were targeted for layoff, and neither was offered any rationale beyond a letter they received that cited Article II of the Constitution, which gives the president broad authority over personnel matters within the executive branch. Both had passed their two-year probationary window, before which judges are typically more susceptible to termination.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kim had the highest grant rate for asylum cases among New York City immigration judges, according to TRAC, which compiled data through 2024<\/a>, while Rey Caldas had drawn right-wing ire in 2022 <\/a>for tweets and public statements made when she was an advocate critical of ICE during the first Trump administration\u2019s crackdown. Before becoming an immigration judge in 2022, she worked in nonprofits on legal advocacy for survivors of domestic violence, while Kim worked in private practice as an immigration attorney.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the weeks leading up to Rey Caldas and Kim\u2019s firing, both described the status quo of courts upended by ICE\u2019s presence in the courthouse hallways day in and day out.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt was chaos,\u201d Kim said.<\/p>\n![\"Federal](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/072625_ice_arrest.jpg\")
Federal agents detain a woman after her immigration court date inside 26 Federal Plaza was postponed, July 24, 2025. Credit: Madison Swart<\/p>\n