Administration fires the Boston immigration judge who blocked the Tufts student's deportation.

OK. Hon. The immigration court system, hon, is not, technically, the federal judiciary. The immigration courts are part of the executive branch, under the Department of Justice, in a bureau called the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which means the Attorney General, on paper, can fire an immigration judge. The paper part is important, because what the paper does not say is that the Attorney General can fire a judge for issuing a ruling the administration did not like.

Judge Roopal Patel, in Boston, in January, ruled that the Department of Homeland Security had not met its burden in trying to deport Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts doctoral student arrested in Somerville, in front of a security camera, by masked agents, in the spring of the prior year. The judge ruled DHS did not have the evidence. The judge wrote it down. The judge filed it.

In April, the administration fired the judge. The firing came along with the firing of Judge Nina Froes, in Chelmsford, who in February blocked the deportation of another pro-Palestinian student. No cause was publicly cited. The firing letters did not specify a reason.

I have worked in places where the boss fires the bartender who refuses to over-serve a guy who is going to drive home. That is, technically, a firing the boss can do. It is also, technically, the kind of firing that describes the kind of bar. The kind of bar tells you a lot about the kind of boss.

The running count, hon, of immigration judges fired since the start of this administration is now, per the trade press, more than a hundred. Out of roughly seven hundred and fifty. That is one in seven. That is not a personnel review. That is a purge.

The Tufts student, by the way, is out of detention. The judge who got her out is out of a job.

You ever notice how the administration that talks about judges legislating from the bench fires judges for applying the law as written.

Funny how that works.