Michael Barbaro

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro.

This is The Daily.

Throughout his second term, President Trump has been blocked over and over by federal courts, except, that is, for a little-known court system that oversees immigration.

Today, my colleague, Nicholas Nehemas, brings us the inside story of how the president has systematically pressured the judges in that system to carry out his agenda and speaks with one of those judges about the fallout.

It's Tuesday, June 23rd.

Nick, welcome to the show.

Nick, talk for a moment about why in this moment you decided to spend so much time reporting on the judges of the United States immigration court system.

Right.

Generated a huge amount of outrage, consumed the country for weeks.

Or decide to keep them in the country.

Well, just describe the immigration court system and how it works and how that maybe explains why the administration has been able to so fundamentally change it and turn it into an instrument of mass deportation.

Which is fascinating, because when we think of federal judges, we tend to think of Supreme Court judges, appeals court judges.

They are, by design, isolated from political pressures because they have lifetime appointments,

within the judicial branch and become essentially unfireable.

They get appointed by the executive branch, but then they live outside of it in the judicial branch.

But you're saying that's not the case with these immigration judges.

Right.

You're saying there's a real tension there.

Hmm.

Well, talk about that.