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SF judge says she was fired 48 hours after challenging ICE 'unlawful detention' · Best of: Features

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  SF judge says she was fired forty eight hours after challenging ICE
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  unlawful detention. Written by Olivia Hebert This article is
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  being read by an automated voice generated by Everlett. Chloe Dillon was
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  in the middle of deciding an asylum case at San Francisco's immigration
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  court when her supervisor told her to check her email. Dylan had
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  finished hearing testimony and arguments and stepped back into her chambers to
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  deliberate when she opened a termination notice. It was about three thirty
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  PM on august twenty second, twenty twenty five. The letter said her
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  removal was effective that day and ordered Her
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  to surrender her federal property. The notice cited only Article two of
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  the Constitution, according to a lawsuit Dylan filed Thursday. I just started
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  packing up all of my stuff, Dylan told SF Gate by phone
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  on Thursday. Her legal assistant was crying as colleagues helped take things
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  off the walls and box up her belongings. Dylan's husband drove from
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  Berkeley with their nine year old son to load everything into the
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  family Subaru. The firing also abruptly left Dylan, her husband and their
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  two children without health insurance, she said. Dylan is the wife of
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  SF Gate tech reporter Ramin Skiba, who joined SF Gate in twenty
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  twenty six. The termination case roughly forty eight hours after Dilland raised
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  concerns with a supervisor about the detention of an unaccompanied minor asylum
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  seeker who had appeared in her courtroom, according to her federal complaint.
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  On august twentieth, twenty twenty five, the eighteen year old arrived early
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  at the Montgomery Street Courthouse alone, dressed in a suit and preparing
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  paperwork before his case was called, Dillon recalled. An attorney for Ice
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  then asked Dillon to dismiss the case, so the government could pursue
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  expedited removal proceedings, she said. Dillon instead gave the man a time
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  period in which to find an attorney before ruling on ICE request.
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  Before leaving, the asylum seeker asked whether he could be detained and
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  whether he could still seek asylum, Dylan said. I said you could
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  be detained at any point in time after this hearing, Dylan recalled.
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  She told him he still had the right to seek asylum, and
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  gave him a copy of his application. Courtstaff later told Dylan that
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  ICE agents detained him after he left the courtroom, the complaint says.
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  The detention unfolded amid a tense protest outside the Montgomery Street Courthouse,
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  Dillon recalled. Demonstrators tried to block Federal officers from driving away with
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  the teenager, who was escorted from the building in a suit with
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  his hands restrained. Protesters later followed officers toward Ice Sansom Street office,
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  KQED reported. At least one person was detained and Federal Officers Pepper
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  sprayed a protester and a journalist during the clashes, according to KQED.
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  Reviewing the case later that day, Dillon determined the man had entered
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  the country alone at seventeen, and therefore was an unaccompanied minor, a
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  status she believed barred expedited removal, and required his asylum application to
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  first be heard by U. S. Citizenship and immigration services. Dylan said
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  she emailed then Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Loy McCleskey what afternoon, raising
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  concerns about possible violations of law and due process, and saying courthouse
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  arrests were disrupting the administration of justice. I said that I was
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  concerned about this unlawful detention. I was concerned that these heavy handed
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  enforcement tactics were impeding the orderly administration of justice, Dylan said. And
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  then it was only forty eight hours later when I was fired.
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  Dylan alleges the Justice Department fired her in retaliation for reporting what
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  she believed were violations of federal law and due process. The August
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  encounter was not Dillon's first dispute with immigration court leadership, according to
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  the lawsuit. Months before her firing, McCleskey instructed San Francisco immigration judges
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  to generally grant ICE requests to transfer cases, and deny them only
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  in rare circumstances, according to the complaint. Dylan said ICE lawyers were
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  frequently pushing to move cases out of San Francisco to distant courts
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  in other parts of California, or even out of state. Dylan argued
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  judges retained discretion to make those changes, and that transferred could burden
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  attorneys, witnesses, and respondents access to counsel. Dylan said McCleskey later cautioned
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  her that the White House was paying attention to the issue. She
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  told SF Gate Thursday she did not view the warning as a
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  threat. She was cautioning me, Dylan said, essentially, like, do you really
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  want to push this? Dillon later denied ICE requests to move at
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  least some cases when attorneys objected. The lawsuit alleges that court administrators
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  subsequently transferred one such case anyway. Her lawsuit, filed Thursday in the
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  Northern District of California, accuses the Justice Department of violating the Whistleblower
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  Protection Act, the First and Fifth Amendments, and Federal Administrative Law. Dylan
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  is seeking reinstatement, back pay, damages, and a declaration that her firing
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  was unlawful. The complaint alleges she received no notice or opportunity to
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  challenge the dismissal before it took effect. Dillon served as a San
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  Francisco immigration judge from twenty twenty two to twenty twenty five within
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  the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review, and now works as
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  a public defender in San Mateo. Dylan first appealed her firing to
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  the Merit Systems Protection Board, according to her complaint, which says the
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  case has remained unresolved for about a year, as the board weighs
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  related litigation involving other fired immigration judges. That delay prompted her to
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  take the dispute to federal court. If you do something even small
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  that they don't like, they're gonna fire you, Dylan said. She described
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  the climate around the firings as a hair trigger. By the time
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  Dillon was fired, San Francisco's immigration court was already being hollowed out.
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  Seven judges were dismissed in a matter of months, including Assistant Chief
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  Immigration Judge Loy McCleskey, while more than one hundred twenty thousand cases
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  remained pending before the court, according to SF Gates previous reporting in
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  september twenty twenty five. The losses came amid a broader contraction of
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  the immigration bench. The Justice Department began twenty twenty five with more
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  than seven hundred immigration judges nationwide. By that September, fewer than six
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  hundred reportedly remained. EOIR also moved to close The San Francisco Court,
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  ending hearings at its Montgomery Street location, and permanently shuttering the court
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  on september fourth. Its cases were reassigned to the Concord Immigration Court.
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  When you have judges who are in fear that they will be
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  fired for the decisions that they're making, it has completely undermined the
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  basic principles of judicial adjudication, Dylan said. I don't see how you
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  have fair and unbiased tribunals in they immigration court when there is
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  this atmosphere of fear and intimidation. Her lawsuit alleges she experienced that
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  pressure first hand, arguing that she was fired after questioning government practices
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  she believed violated federal law. The Justice Department has not yet responded
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  to those allegations in court. S. F. Gate reached out to the
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  Department of Justice but did not hear back prior to publication. I
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  hope that this story of what happened to me will help shed
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  a light on what is happening in the immigration courts, Dylan said.
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  These are cases that mean a lot to the people who are
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  there, both them and their surrounding communities, and they at least deserve
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  a fair shake.