Trump Administration Fires 2 Judges Who Blocked Deportations of Pro-Palestinian Activists
13th April 2026
The Trump administration on Friday fired two judges who blocked the deportations of international students involved in pro-Palestinian activism.
One of the judges, Roopal Patel, a Boston immigration court judge, oversaw the Trump administration’s immigration case against Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish Tufts University doctoral student who was detained by ICE agents on the street in Somerville last March.
In February, Patel found there were no grounds to deport her, following a months-long legal battle with the Trump administration and opposition to her arrest from Jewish students and groups.
The other judge fired on Friday, Nina Froes of Chelmsford, Massachusetts, blocked the deportation of Mohsen Mahdawi, a pro-Palestinian student activist at Columbia University and green card holder from the West Bank, in February.
To be clear, these aren’t real judges, i.e. appointed and confirmed under Article III of the Constitution. The immigration ‘courts’ are administrative civil courts within the Department of Justice.