FIRED: DOJ cuts NY immigration judge who greenlit 97% of asylum claims

The Department of Justice has fired New York's most lenient immigration judges, who would approve asylum claims for those coming to the US 97 percent of the time.  

Judge Vivienne Gordon-Uruakpa, a now ex-immigration judge, would approve asylum claims 97 percent of the time, which is more than any other immigration judge in the entire state of New York, per the New York Post. She was terminated from her public position in September, a government official told reporters.  

Gordon-Uruakpa's name is no longer on the website for the courthouse where she used to serve as an immigration judge. The DOJ said that the website is "up to date" with the current staff. The firing of Gordon-Uruakpa appears to be part of a wider effort to nix lenient immigration judges under the Trump administration.  

Immigration judges are hired as well as fired at the word of Attorney General Pam Bondi. Instead of tenured judges, immigration judges are just lawyers who work in the capacity to determine what happens in immigration cases. There have been over 100 immigration judges fired during Trump's second term as president, and the DOJ has posted job applications for those looking to become immigration judges.   

In the last quarter of 2025, around 80 percent of all immigrants seeking asylum in the US were deported, indicating that immigration judges are being much stricter on who gets asylum in the US and who does not. New York's toughest immigration judge, John Burns, was named the Acting Assistant Chief Judge at the beginning of 2026.