Trump's DOJ Pressured an Immigration Judge to Reverse Rulings, Then Fired Her

Karen Donoso Stevens, a Virginia immigration judge for nearly a decade at Annandale Immigration Court, says DOJ supervisors pressured her in late 2025 to reverse bond rulings for four immigrants who entered as unaccompanied minors. Her supervisor said unidentified "higher-ups" wanted the rulings overturned without a formal appeal, and she complied. After leadership demanded explanations for six more bond decisions, a supervisor pulled her from an active docket at a Jan. 14, 2026 hearing; DOJ fired her that May without explanation. She is appealing; the Washington Post ran her account Oct. 24, 2026.

Immigration judges are DOJ employees, not Article III judges, but policy bars directing a specific outcome. DOJ has fired about 100 of the nation's roughly 700 immigration judges in Trump's second term; her successor denies asylum at a markedly higher rate. Her named account adds specificity to a broader pattern of reshaping immigration-court personnel.

DOJ denied seeking predetermined outcomes, saying it adjudicates cases "impartially under the law and evidence." No ruling on her firing had issued.