By Nate Raymond
Dec 1 (Reuters) – A former immigration judge filed a lawsuit on Monday claiming she was wrongfully fired by President Donald Trump’s administration, which she says relied on an “unjust” belief that the president can legally discriminate against federal workers based on their sex, national origin and political affiliation.
In her lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., Tania Nemer said the U.S. Department of Justice fired her on February 5 shortly after the beginning of Trump’s second term in office because she is a woman, a dual citizen of Lebanon who is the child of immigrant parents, and had earlier in her career run unsuccessfully for local office as a Democrat.
She argues her firing violated the landmark Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and her right to engage in political activity under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. According to her lawsuit, the Justice Department’s Equal Employment Opportunity office had dismissed a discrimination complaint she filed, saying the termination was a “lawful exercise” of the authority the president and attorney general possess under Article II of the Constitution to remove inferior officers.
OFFICE DECIDED JUDGES NOT PROTECTED
The head of the Justice Department’s equal employment opportunity office, in a September 25 decision, had said that no statute, including Title VII, provides immigration judges with protection from at-will removal by Trump. Nemer argues that is wrong and that a federal judge should force the Justice Department to reinstate her.
“Title VII is unquestionably constitutional,” her attorneys, Nathaniel Zelinsky and James Eisenmann, said in a joint statement. “The government cannot discriminate against its employees. Full stop. We look forward to pursuing Tania’s case in court.”
The Justice Department, whose Executive Office for Immigration Review houses the executive branch’s immigration court system, declined to comment.
Nemer, who joined the Justice Department as an immigration judge in 2023 during former Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration, said she was on the bench when her immediate supervisor interrupted her and informed her she had been terminated, effective immediately. He did not give a reason, she said.
More than 100 immigration judges out of about 700 have been fired or pushed out since the start of Trump’s return to office in January, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association, a move that the organization says has depleted the number of judges available to handle a surge in cases as the administration ramps up arrests and deportations.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Rod Nickel)
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