November 21 was just another day for Jeremiah Johnson, hearing three cases from immigrants seeking to stay in the United States in his courtroom in San Francisco . That was until he heard two of his fellow immigration judges had been fired.

Heading back to his chambers, Johnson logged onto his computer and found an email with the subject line including the word “termination”. Before he could even print the letter from the Department of Justice , he had been locked out of the system.

Appointed under the first Trump administration , Johnson served eight years on the bench, but in one moment on a Friday afternoon, he had lost his job, and the hundreds of immigrants on his docket saw their cases paused.

“Immigration is much more than judges, it's much more than just my job,” Johnson

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