Immigration Judges Are Being Hired for Remote Posts. In New York, Some Now Preside by Video Over Immigrants Who Must Still Show Up in Person

The Justice Department is rebuilding the immigration bench with judges hired into remote positions, and at 26 Federal Plaza some appear on a screen while respondents are still ordered to come to court. The law allows it. Whether it changes outcomes is a question EOIR has never answered with its own data.

The Justice Department is filling the nation’s immigration courts with newly hired judges whose job listing describes the post as a remote position that can be performed anywhere in the United States, and in New York some of those judges are now presiding by video over immigrants who must still travel to court in person. New York Focus reported on Oct. 9 that 10 of the 23 judges its reporters observed over three days in September at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan, one of the busiest immigration courts in the country, appeared by video, and that almost all of the 10 were new hires. The Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Justice Department agency that runs the courts, declined to tell the outlet how many of its judges work remotely.

The story matters now because the courts are in the middle of the fastest turnover in their history. EOIR’s own figures show it hired 192 immigration judges in the first three quarters of fiscal 2026, after hiring 14 in all of fiscal 2025, and a current posting on USAJOBS, open until Oct. 15, lists the duty location as “Anywhere in the U.S. (remote job)” with pay of $161,590 to $209,600. A large share of the people who will decide asylum claims, cancellation applications and removal cases over the next several years are being recruited on those terms. For the roughly 3.5 million people with cases pending, the question is no longer only who the judge is, but where the judge is and whether that makes any difference.

A bench rebuilt at record speed

The hiring wave followed an unusual recruiting pitch. In November 2025 the Justice Department posted an advertisement inviting lawyers to “become a deportation judge,” Bloomberg Law reported, using an informal title for a job that still appears as “Immigration Judge” on the federal hiring portal. Then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said such judges were needed “to restore integrity and honor to our Nation’s Immigration Court system,” according to the same report. At the same time, the bench was shrinking: NPR counted 553 permanent and assistant chief immigration judges in February 2026, down from 726 in early February 2025. The National Association of Immigration Judges, the judges’ professional association, told New York Focus that more than 125 judges have been fired and more than 100 have left voluntarily.

The administration presents the rebuild as a success. When it swore in 77 permanent and 5 temporary judges in May, the Justice Department called it “the largest immigration judge class in agency history” and said EOIR had completed more than 1.08 million cases and cut its pending caseload by more than 447,000 since Jan. 20, 2025. EOIR’s quarterly statistics are consistent with a falling caseload, as the table below shows.

Fiscal year	Judges hired	Judges on board
FY 2022	104	634
FY 2023	133	734
FY 2024	46	735
FY 2025	14	634
FY 2026 (through June 30)	192	662

Source: EOIR Adjudication Statistics, “Immigration Judge Hiring,” data generated July 2026. Hiring counts include reemployed annuitant judges and exclude temporary immigration judges.

Two things stand out in those numbers. First, hiring has outrun anything in EOIR’s recent history: 192 judges in nine months, more than in any full fiscal year in the table. Second, the bench has barely grown. By our calculation from the same table, starting at 634 judges, adding 192 hires and ending at 662 implies roughly 164 departures between October 2025 and June 2026. Because the hiring count includes rehired retirees and the on-board count excludes temporary judges, that figure is an approximation, but it shows how much of the new hiring is replacing judges who left rather than adding capacity. Over the same period, EOIR reports the pending caseload fell from 3,722,776 at the end of fiscal 2025 to 3,469,569 at the end of June, a drop of 253,207 by our calculation.

The turnover is starker at 26 Federal Plaza. New York Focus reported that 37 judges were assigned there in January 2025, that only 16 remain, and that 26 new judges have been appointed to the court. It also reported that remote work appears to be reserved for new hires, while EOIR largely ended telework arrangements for other employees early in the administration. Those court-level figures come from that outlet’s reporting and have not been published by EOIR.

What the statute says about a judge on a screen

Nothing in the Immigration and Nationality Act requires the judge and the respondent to be in the same room. Section 240(b)(2) of the act allows removal proceedings to be held in person, by video conference, or, where the parties agree, without the respondent present. Only telephone hearings carry an extra protection: a full evidentiary hearing on the merits may be held by phone only if the respondent consents after being told of the right to proceed in person or by video. Video requires no consent at all. Federal appeals courts have generally rejected due process challenges to video hearings unless the respondent can show the format actually affected the result.

Video hearings are also not new. The Government Accountability Office reported in July that of nearly 6 million immigration court hearings from fiscal 2022 through 2025, about 37 percent, or 2.2 million, were held remotely, most of them over WebEx. Detained cases ran about 73 percent remote, compared with about one-third for people who are not detained. What is different in New York is the direction. In the usual remote hearing, the judge sits in a courtroom and the respondent appears from a detention center or a lawyer’s office. In the dockets New York Focus described, the respondent travels to Lower Manhattan and the judge appears on a monitor.

EOIR has also given individual judges more control over who appears how. According to the GAO, the agency rescinded Director’s Memorandum 22-07, its policy on internet-based hearings, in March 2025, saying it was unhelpful and “infringed on the decisional independence of an immigration judge.” The practical result is that each judge sets the terms. New York Focus described one judge, Laurie Samuels, who presided remotely over a docket of nearly 200 cases on a single Friday morning in September, and reported that nearly 90 percent of the respondents before her appeared in person, according to an analysis of EOIR data by Devon Thurman of the Deportation Data Project at Georgia Tech. EOIR spokesperson Kathryn Mattingly told the outlet that all judges, in person or online, are “independent adjudicators” and that new judges receive “extensive classroom-based training and on-the-job training.”

Does the screen change the outcome? EOIR has never measured it

This is the question attorneys most want answered, and the honest answer is that the government does not know. In 2017 the GAO recommended that EOIR use its data on how each hearing was held to assess whether the medium affects outcomes. EOIR never implemented that recommendation. Instead, it told the GAO that fewer than 1 percent of appeals in 2019 and 2020 raised hearing-medium problems, which shows how rarely the issue is litigated but says little about whether results differ.

Outside researchers have tried to fill the gap. Thurman told New York Focus that her analysis of EOIR data found respondents who appear by video are significantly more likely to be ordered deported than those who appear in person, and she pointed to “judicial frustration” caused by audio and video lag. That finding concerns respondents on video, not judges on video, and no published study yet isolates the effect of a remote judge facing an in-person respondent. It is a plausible concern, not an established one. The GAO’s own stakeholder interviews pointed both ways: lawyers and court staff described lower travel costs, more efficient dockets and easier access to private attorneys, but also inconsistent judge preferences and the lack of simultaneous interpretation over WebEx, which the GAO said can make interpreted hearings take two to three times as long.

Experience is the other variable. Holly D’Andrea, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, told New York Focus that new judges often need “six months to a year, maybe two years” to work independently, and that learning the job from a remote location is harder. One New York attorney quoted by the outlet, Caroline Stephenson, offered the counterpoint many practitioners would recognize: remote hearings are “more efficient,” though seeing people in the room “may give you a different perspective.” In our analysis, the combination of an inexperienced judge, a heavy master calendar and no in-room view of documents is where problems are most likely to surface, because those are the hearings where a missed document or a garbled answer can decide a case without anyone noticing at the time.

If your judge appears on a screen: the practical answers

Do I still have to go to court if the judge is remote? Yes, if your hearing notice tells you to appear in person. The judge’s location does not change your obligation. Missing a hearing can lead to an order of removal in absentia under section 240(b)(5) of the act, and such an order can be undone only in narrow circumstances, such as a motion showing exceptional circumstances filed within 180 days or a showing that you never received proper notice. New York Focus described attorneys and respondents who traveled to court and were told by the judge’s staff they could leave without seeing the judge, which is frustrating but not a reason to stay home next time.

I moved to another state. Does my case have to stay in New York? Not necessarily. Under 8 C.F.R. 1003.20, a judge may change venue for good cause on a motion that includes your new address. Until the motion is granted, the case stays where it is and you must keep appearing there. New York Focus reported that one man who had moved to Chicago was given five days to appear in New York unless his venue changed, which shows how quickly a pending motion can run into a hearing date.

What if the video connection fails or the judge cannot see my documents? Say so on the record at the time, and ask for a continuance or for the evidence to be filed electronically. Because courts reviewing video hearings look for actual prejudice, an objection made during the hearing is far more useful on appeal than a complaint raised afterward. The same applies to interpretation: if answers are being cut off or summarized, object while the record is still open.

Can anyone challenge the remote-judge arrangement itself? A broad challenge would face an uphill fight, because the statute expressly permits video proceedings and does not say where the judge must sit. Challenges are more likely to succeed case by case, where a respondent can show that a specific technical or interpretation failure changed the result.

Immigration Analytics will update this story as EOIR releases new data. This article is for general information and is not legal advice. The situation is changing quickly, so please consult an immigration attorney about your specific case.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds a LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Deigo and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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