SAN FRANCISCO—Eleven immigration judges and one assistant chief judge in San Francisco have been fired by the Trump administration in 2025 so far. With one more judge having retired in October, the San Francisco Immigration Court currently has nine judges in place.

Five immigration judges were fired on Nov. 21, according to local media outlet Mission Local. The judges fired were Shuting Chen, Amber D. George, Louis A. Gordon, Jeremiah Johnson, and Patrick Savage.

With another six immigration judges fired this year, plus Judge Scott D. Gambill, who retired in October, the court has lost 12 judges.

Data analysis shows the denial rate among the remaining judges from 2020 to the first 11 months of 2025 increased to 38.9 percent, up from 24 percent among 21 judges early this year, based on judge-by-judge asylum decisions in immigration courts compiled by TRAC (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse) at Syracuse University.

The court’s Assistant Chief Judge Loi L. McCleskey was fired on Sept. 9, according to the NBC Bay Area affiliate. As a judge who is in a supervisory position, an assistant chief judge doesn’t have to take on the workload of immigration cases.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the Immigration Courts’ superior agency under the Department of Justice (DOJ), did not reveal the reason that the judges were dismissed, citing “personnel matters.”

The immigration courts are housed in the executive branch, and EOIR regularly evaluates all immigration judges based on factors such as “conduct, impartiality/bias, adherence to the law, productivity/performance, and professionalism.”

An EOIR spokesperson said in an email to The Epoch Times: “All judges have a legal, ethical, and professional obligation to be impartial and neutral in adjudicating cases.

“If a judge violates that obligation by demonstrating a systematic bias in favor of or against either party, EOIR is obligated to take action to preserve the integrity of its system.”

Chen, who was fired on Nov. 21, was appointed as an immigration judge in 2022. She granted 90.9 percent of asylum cases and other types of relief, such as withholding of removal and temporary protected status, according to TRAC data.

She told NBC that she was emotional when she saw the notice.

“I started to cry in my courtroom in front of the parties, which I always tried not to do, despite the traumatic nature of our jobs,” she said.

Except for Judge Roger Dinh, who was appointed in May 2023 and had a denial rate of 57.3 percent—parallel to the 58.9 percent denial rate for the same period nationwide—all the judges fired share high grant rates, close to or surpassing 90 percent.

Immigration Judge Jeremiah Johnson, who was appointed by then Attorney General Jeff Sessions in October 2017, was fired the same day as Chen. Johnson had a grant rate of 90.4 percent.

“While I am disheartened, I am now free to speak and would like [to] give thanks for all the work judges are doing to uphold the rule of law,” Johnson said in a LinkedIn post.

He said that in 2023, the EOIR prohibited him from giving a speech at the International Association of Refugee and Migration Judges (IAMRJ) conference.

IARMJ is an organization focused on immigration rights and that “seeks to foster recognition that protection from persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion is an individual right established under international law,” according to its website.

Director of EOIR Sirce E. Owen said in an Aug. 22 memo to the whole immigration court system: “Adjudicatory outliers or statistically improbable outcome metrics ... may be indicative of a systematic bias or failure to adhere to applicable law that warrants close examination and potential action.”

The San Francisco Immigration Court handles 121,273 pending cases, partly because of its 70.9 percent grant rate for asylum or other relief, a figure much higher than the 47.9 percent nationwide.

In the United States, the current number of pending immigration cases is more than 3.4 million, from the overall peak of 3.7 million in 2024.

“After four years of the Biden Administration forcing Immigration Courts to implement a de facto amnesty for hundreds of thousands of aliens,” the current DOJ is “restoring integrity to our immigration system,” a DOJ spokesperson said in an email statement to The Epoch Times.

Three immigration judges in Concord, California, have also been fired—Florence Chamberlin, Roberta Wilson, and Alison Daw—the local NBC Bay Area affiliate reported.

The DOJ is now hiring immigration judges, describing the position as “deportation judges” on its website, with an annual salary of $159,951 to $207,500 and a 25 percent base pay recruitment incentive. The offer is for positions in cities, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Concord.