Fired Immigration Judge Sues Pam Bondi
Lawsuit by former Judge Tania Nemer says she was targeted for being a Lebanese American woman and Democrat, testing the limits of Article II power over the immigration courts.
WASHINGTON — A former federal immigration judge is suing Attorney General Pamela Bondi and the U.S. Department of Justice, alleging she was abruptly fired because she is a woman, the U.S.-born daughter of Lebanese immigrants with dual citizenship, and a Democrat who once ran for local judicial office.
The case directly challenges the Trump administration’s sweeping claim that the president has a constitutional right to dismiss federal workers for discriminatory reasons, a theory that could upend civil rights protections for millions of government employees if courts allow it to stand.
Who Is Suing and Why It Matters
The plaintiff, former immigration judge Tania Nemer, filed her complaint Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, naming Bondi in her official capacity as attorney general and the Department of Justice as defendants. Nemer, who served on the Cleveland Immigration Court within the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), says she was hired in 2023 after being described internally as “the perfect candidate” with 12 years of immigration practice, and later received the highest possible performance ratings.
Nemer’s suit alleges violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination in federal employment based on sex and national origin, and of the First Amendment, which prohibits retaliation for political activity and affiliation. For immigration advocates, the case crystallizes fears that the second Trump administration is weaponizing personnel decisions to sideline judges perceived as fair-minded or sympathetic to migrants’ rights in a system already facing millions of backlogged cases.
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Alleged Firing After 15 Days of Trump’s Return
According to the complaint, Nemer was summarily removed on Feb. 5, 2025—just 15 days after President Donald Trump returned to office and Bondi took control of the department—while she was still in a two-year probationary period as an immigration judge. She says she was pulled off the bench mid-docket, told she was terminated effective immediately, and escorted out of the building; her supervisor allegedly told her she was “one of his best” judges and said he did not know why she was being fired.
Nemer’s filing notes that she was one of three probationary immigration judges in the Cleveland court and the only woman and only judge of Lebanese or Arab origin among them; the two male, non-Lebanese probationary judges were not removed. In a broader 2023 hiring class of 38 immigration judges, she alleges she was the only dual citizen of an Arab country and the only one terminated in the early weeks of the new administration.
Bondi’s Article II Theory Puts Civil Rights on the Line
The most far-reaching allegation in Nemer’s suit is that the Justice Department’s Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) office refused to fully investigate her discrimination complaint and instead issued a final agency decision declaring that Title VII “does not supersede Article II of the Constitution” for immigration judges. According to the complaint, DOJ asserted that the attorney general, acting under the president’s Article II removal power, could fire her without cause and that any federal statute to the contrary “would run afoul of Article II.”
Nemer’s attorneys argue this is an “unprecedented assault” on the modern civil service, warning that if courts accept DOJ’s position, the president could lawfully fire federal workers based on race, sex, religion, national origin, disability, age, or political affiliation, with no recourse under landmark civil rights laws. Legal experts and advocates note that Supreme Court precedent has long recognized Congress’s authority to condition and regulate the removal of “inferior officers” and career civil servants, including through Title VII and the Civil Service Reform Act.
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Political and Immigration-Court Context
Nemer’s lawsuit lands amid a documented campaign by the Trump–Bondi Justice Department to purge the immigration courts of judges seen as insufficiently aligned with the administration’s mass-deportation agenda. Reporting and congressional letters show that since February, DOJ has fired or forced out dozens of immigration judges and Board of Immigration Appeals members—even as the backlog in immigration courts has climbed into the several millions.
Senate Democrats, including Sen. Dick Durbin and Sen. Alex Padilla, have already admonished Bondi for “arbitrary firing” of nonpartisan immigration judges and warned that politicizing the bench undermines due process for asylum seekers, long-term residents, and mixed-status families. For communities appearing in immigration court—especially migrants of color and those from Muslim-majority or Arab countries—the removal of experienced judges and their replacement by politically selected appointees heightens fears of bias and rushed removals.
Claims, Remedies, and What Comes Next
Nemer’s complaint brings five counts: sex discrimination under Title VII; national origin discrimination under Title VII; a First Amendment claim for targeting her prior campaign as a Democratic municipal court candidate; a request for declaratory judgment that the administration’s Article II theory is unlawful; and a petition for a writ of mandamus ordering her reinstatement. She seeks reinstatement as an immigration judge, rescission of her termination, back pay, front pay, compensatory damages for emotional distress and reputational harm, and attorney’s fees.
For immigration practitioners, worker advocates, and migrants whose cases depend on fair adjudication, Nemer v. Bondi is not only about one judge’s career—it is an early test of whether courts will allow the Trump administration to strip anti-discrimination protections from the federal workforce, starting with the immigration bench. A ruling in Nemer’s favor could reaffirm that civil rights statutes and constitutional protections apply with full force to those who adjudicate the rights of migrants; a loss could embolden further ideological purges across agencies central to immigration enforcement and protection.
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Wonderful! I wish all of them would sue her.
Hooray for her! May justice be served. As always, thanks for your great reporting.