One of them, former San Francisco Immigration Judge Jeremiah Johnson, traveled to Guatemala to retrace his last case on the bench.
It has been six months since Johnson was fired. Up to this point, the Department of Justice has not given him a clear reason for his dismissal, a move that prompted him to look beyond the courtroom for understanding. The Executive Office for Immigration Review declined to comment on why Johnson and more than 100 other judges have been fired.
Johnson started his journey in Tapachula, Mexico, more than 3,000 miles from his former bench, at what he described as a gateway where asylum-seekers try to enter Mexico.
"The migrant caravan is on its way north to Mexico City," said Johnson as he documented the caravan.
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The journey marked the beginning of Johnson's effort to witness firsthand the conditions faced by migrants fleeing violence and poverty in Central America.
"Many deported Cubans were there in the city, and then many Haitians," Johnson said.
Johnson said his mission was to travel south to Guatemala to trace his final case as an immigration judge.
"The last words I said on the bench were, you've been granted asylum in the United States. That decision is final. Welcome to the United States," he said.
Johnson said he was fired by the Department of Justice about 30 minutes after granting asylum to an Indigenous family from Guatemala, a moment he said propelled him to seek answers.
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"If I could explore it through the path of this one person, this one family, to go to that village, and that's when I went there," Johnson said. "I realized I needed to perhaps meet the parents, since the parents were still alive and still in a village. And the attack that had occurred that caused the basis for asylum - the asylum seeker's brother, younger brother, had been murdered during that attack - so I needed to go and dig a little deeper."
With the help of an interpreter, Johnson hiked to a remote village in Todos Santos, Guatemala. He took flowers to the burial site of the brother who was killed and met with the parents of the individual he had granted asylum to in San Francisco.
"When we just mentioned the son's name, the pain that was in her face - the mother's face - of just remembering a lost child. The pain that the father had, and he also had a very deep scar on his chin that was consistent with what was written in the declaration," Johnson said.
Asked what he was seeking from the journey, Johnson said, "I wasn't really seeking. I wasn't seeking anything. I was opening myself up to see what would happen. I really was trying to understand the relationships people have. No longer a judge."
At least 18 immigration judges have been fired in San Francisco since 2025. Johnson said he has still not been given a clear reason for his termination. An analysis by the ABC7 Data Team of immigration court data shows Johnson granted asylum in 88.9% of his cases.
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When asked whether he considered himself lenient, Johnson responded, "No, I'm not lenient at all."
"As I was going and traveling, that became a little clearer to me, when I was walking to the graveyard, that, you know, what I did not only that day was right, but what I was doing for the last eight years was right," he said.
Johnson kept journals throughout his journey and said he is planning to write a book.
In December, regarding immigration judges' termination, The Department of Justice sent a statement that said, "After four years of the Biden Administration forcing Immigration Courts to implement a de facto amnesty for hundreds of thousands of aliens, this Department of Justice is restoring integrity to our immigration system."