Nation's top immigration judge hears a rush of Somali cases at Chelmsford court

Amid accusations that the Trump administration is fast-tracking the deportation of Somali immigrants, the country's top immigration judge on Friday took up a docket of nearly two dozen cases against Somalis in Chelmsford.

Chief Immigration Judge Teresa Riley appeared via video to hear 23 cases involving Somalis, most of whom who live in Maine and are seeking asylum. A few also reside in Massachusetts and Minnesota. The cases were docketed to be heard in the Chelmsford immigration court; Riley logged on from her home court in Cleveland.

Starting at 8 a.m., she heard the cases uninterrupted over the next five hours. At the end of many of the cases, Riley set asylum hearings for the coming months — an extremely tight timeline by the standards of asylum proceedings, which often take years. Riley also demanded that hard copies of evidence be mailed to the Department of Homeland Security. Attorneys say both the hard copy request — and the presence of a chief immigration judge in Chelmsford — are highly unusual.

Greg Romanovsky was in court Friday representing one of the Somali immigrants. He questioned why the case, which had been scheduled for 2028, was moved up by two years and transferred to another judge.

“It is now reset to today's calendar before the chief immigration judge — and to counsel’s knowledge, all respondents scheduled for this calendar are Somali nationals,” Romanovsky said in court. “It raises some concerns about the respondents' right to fair and consistent process.”

Riley responded to Romanovsky that she still presides over cases.

“ I've heard immigration cases across the country the entire year, including at the Cleveland immigration court where I sit, and also at other immigration courts and other states,” she said.

Riley was appointed chief immigration judge in December. She had served as a judge on the Cleveland court since 2019, following a career as a federal and county prosecutor in Ohio. She leads the Office of the Chief Immigration Judge, overseeing policies and establishing priorities for the country's 73 immigration courts and some 600 judges.

Friday's proceedings came a week after three immigration judges were fired in Massachusetts — one in Chelmsford and two in Boston. The bench in Chelmsford now has just seven immigration judges, down from 19 when President Trump returned to office.

" What we saw today was both concerning and unfortunately consistent with how the immigration court system is operating right now," Romanovsky told WBUR after the hearing. He added that immigration judges are employees of the U.S. Justice Department, "the same agency that is actively pushing for deportations in federal court."

Trump has characterized Somalis as “garbage" and said “we don’t want them in our country.” In January, the White House moved to eliminate Temporary Protected Status for Somalis, something it's also attempted with nationalities including Haitians, Syrians and Venezuelans. The Massachusetts Attorney General's office filed a brief this week opposing the move for Somalis.

A federal lawsuit in Washington, D.C. accuses U.S. officials of implementing a policy for fast-tracking Somalis through the system, and creating a dedicated national docket to resolve cases on a "highly accelerated timeline." The suit names 10 judges, including Riley and other supervisors, who plaintiffs allege are handpicked to oversee proceedings for Somalis.

In court filings, government lawyers denied that any policy exists for fast-tracking Somalis, and said officials are aiming to process asylum claims in a timely manner.