**Trump Administration Dismisses Another Immigration Judge in San Francisco**

The U.S. Department of Justice has dismissed a sixth immigration judge from San Francisco since President Donald Trump took office, continuing what appears to be a pattern of removing judges with backgrounds in immigrant advocacy or higher-than-average asylum approval rates.

Judge Shira Levine, who was appointed to the immigration court in October 2021, was terminated without explanation, according to a report by NBC Bay Area.

Milli Atkinson, Director of the Immigrant Legal Defense Program at the Bar Association of San Francisco, stated that Levine received no reason for her dismissal. However, the decision did not come as a complete surprise.

Since April, five other immigration judges in San Francisco have also been dismissed, including Judges Chloe Dillon and Elisa Brasil—both of whom held some of the highest asylum grant rates in the court, according to data from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).

Judge Dillon told KQED that she learned of her dismissal via a brief three-sentence email on August 22. She had just returned to her office from a multi-year asylum hearing, where she had already indicated her ruling and was preparing to issue a decision that day.

Dillon said she then spent 90 minutes collecting her belongings, returning federal property, and transferring her docket of over 6,000 cases—without being informed who would take over her caseload.

She noted that the dismissal did not entirely surprise her. Under President Trump, federal employees have increasingly been treated as at-will workers, and mass firings have occurred in immigration courts—particularly targeting judges appointed during the Biden administration, or those with experience in immigrant defense or high asylum approval rates.

“They are specifically targeting one end of the spectrum because they don’t like the outcomes,” Dillon said. “They essentially don’t believe people should be granted asylum.”

According to KQED, five of the six judges recently dismissed had asylum approval rates above the national average and had previously worked as attorneys representing immigrants.

“It appears to be completely ideologically based,” said former San Francisco immigration judge Dana Leigh Marks. “It’s making assumptions about people based on their backgrounds and seems highly results-oriented—targeted at judges who think more independently and are willing to listen to both sides of a case, instead of simply accepting the government’s assertions.”

Mass deportation was a central platform of Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign—a position that helped secure a sweeping victory over former Vice President Kamala Harris and a national popular majority.

From fiscal year 2019 to 2024, Judge Levine approved asylum in over 97% of her cases, while Judge Dillon granted 96.5%. For comparison, the national average for that period was about 50%, dropping to below 36% in October of last year, according to TRAC data.

Experts say the high approval rates in San Francisco are partly due to the fact that asylum seekers in the area are more likely to have legal representation and face different adjudication standards than in other parts of the country. Still, many believe the Justice Department is actively targeting judges who are perceived as less aligned with government prosecutors.

Judge Marks added that those being dismissed tend to have backgrounds in immigrant advocacy, private practice, or public interest law, while judges who previously worked as prosecutors within the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have largely remained in place.

Before her appointment in May 2023, Judge Elisa Brasil practiced immigration law in the private sector and frequently handled pro bono cases. Judge Levine previously spent over five years working with Centro Legal de la Raza and the Immigration Institute of the Bay Area.

Judge Dillon formerly served as an attorney advisor at the Los Angeles immigration court. Another dismissed judge, Jami Vigil, had worked for eight years as court-appointed counsel for immigrant families.

In August, the Justice Department eliminated the requirement that temporary immigration judges have prior experience in immigration law. Just one week later, the federal government authorized 600 military lawyers to serve in those judicial roles.