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Trump administration reportedly fires immigration judge who blocked Rümeysa Öztürk’s deportation

She's raising concerns about the political pressures facing immigration judges as the federal government continues its push for mass deportations.

Rümeysa Öztürk. Leah Willingham / AP, File

April 13, 2026 | 1:37 PM

3 minutes to read

In February, an immigration judge terminated removal proceedings against Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University graduate student whose arrest on a Somerville sidewalk led to widespread outrage. Now, the Trump administration has reportedly fired the judge who made the decision.

Roopal Patel was told last Friday that she was being dismissed. Although she was expecting the notice, Patel still found the move “sort of shocking,” she told The Boston Globe.

Patel was fired alongside another immigration judge, Nina Froes, who also dismissed a notable deportation case the government pursued against an international student who advocated for Palestinian rights, The New York Times first reported. Froes was based at the immigration court in Chelmsford, while Patel was based in Boston.

The Department of Justice runs the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which employs immigration judges. These employees are under the executive branch.

A DOJ spokesperson did not specifically comment on the firings of Patel and Froes when reached for comment Monday but did offer a statement saying that action is warranted when immigration judges display bias.

“EOIR continually evaluates all immigration judges, regardless of background, on factors such as conduct, impartiality/bias, adherence to the law, productivity/performance, and professionalism. All judges have a legal, ethical, and professional obligation to be impartial and neutral in adjudicating cases. If a judge violates that obligation by demonstrating a systematic bias in favor of or against either party, EOIR is obligated to take action to preserve the integrity of its system,” DOJ said.

Öztürk, who is from Turkey, was pursuing her Ph.D. at Tufts early last year when officials within the Trump administration quietly rescinded her student visa. They cited her connection to a pro-Palestine op-ed she helped co-author in the Tufts student newspaper as evidence of the threat she purportedly posed to national security.

Video of plainclothes officers swarming Öztürk outside her apartment spread widely online. She was quickly shuttled from Massachusetts to Vermont, then flown to a detention center in Louisiana. She was released after more than six weeks, returning to Massachusetts while her removal proceedings continued in immigration court.

The immigration court found that the Trump administration “had not met its burden of proving [Öztürk’s] removability” in January and thus terminated removal proceedings against her, according to court documents filed by her legal team.

Patel, who was appointed by the Biden administration in 2024, oversaw the case in immigration court. She had seen news reports about Öztürk but told the Globe that she approached the case without bias.

The Trump administration is now appealing Patel’s decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, per the Globe.

Froes oversaw the case of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian student at Columbia University and active protest leader. Mahdawi was arrested in Vermont a few weeks after authorities detained Öztürk and was held for more than two weeks before being released. Mahdawi’s removal proceedings were terminated earlier this year. The Trump administration is also appealing this decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, according to court filings.

Immigration courts, including those in Boston and Chelmsford, have been disrupted by vacancies since last year. The Trump administration has systematically threatened and fired immigration judges who are not seen as adequately supporting the federal government’s mass deportation agenda, the Times recently reported.

Patel does not definitively know if she was fired for her handling of the Öztürk case, she told the Globe. But she did voice concern about the political pressure facing immigration judges.

“It’s creating this climate of fear where judges are worried that if they misstep and do something that’s out of line with what the administration wants, they’re more subject to firing,” Patel told the paper. “That can erode judicial independence, it can erode due process, and it can make people more likely to be ordered removed from this country.”