Shortly after being inaugurated, President Trump fired four senior officials at the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR). In mid-February, he fired 13 of the 28 members of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), 13 newly appointed immigration judges (IJs) who had not yet been sworn in, and five Assistant Chief Immigration Judges. This is not the first time an administration has fired IJs and members of the BIA — the Biden Administration fired approximately 10 IJs at the end of their two-year probationary periods and in 2003, five of the then 16 members of the BIA were asked by Attorney General John Ashcroft to find new jobs. However, the backlogs at immigration courts and the BIA have increased significantly in recent years. At the end of the 2021 fiscal year, there were 1.6 million pending removal cases, and the backlog had grown to 3.6 million cases by the end of the 2024 fiscal year. A decrease in the number of IJs and BIA members will result in longer wait times for individuals to have their cases heard by an IJ and for their appeals to be decided by the BIA. If the Trump Administration replaces the dismissed IJs or BIA members, the new appointees are likely to be ideologically driven and inclined to rule against claims of relief.