Immigration judges quit in response to administration policies

Lisa Dornell loved her job. For 24 years, she sat on the bench in Baltimore's immigration court, hearing hundreds of cases of immigrants trying to stay in the United States. "It was an honor. It was a privilege to be able to preside over so many different cases and be able to grant relief to people who needed relief," Dornell told CNN in an interview. But she walked away from that job in April -- a decision that still invokes a wave of emotion when she recalls it. "The toxic environment made it both harder and easier to leave," Dornell said. Over the past year, in the heat of a border migration crisis, 45 judges have left, moved into new roles in the immigration court system -- which is run by the Justice Department -- or passed away, according to the department. That's nearly double the number who departed their posts in fiscal years 2018 and 2017, when 24 and 21 judges left, respectively, according to data provided by the judges union. The reasons why individual judges have moved on from their posts on the bench vary, but in interviews with judges who left in recent months, one theme ties them all together: frustration over a mounting number of policy changes that, they argue, chipped away at their authority. Their departures come as the Justice Department faces a backlog that exceeds 1 million cases. The bogged-down system has led to immigration cases being pushed out years in the future, leaving many immigrants residing in the US unsure if they'll be allowed to stay or be ordered removed. President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized the nation's immigration system, specifically taking issue with the practice of releasing immigrants while they await their court dates. To remedy that, the administration has sought to hire more immigration judges. Most recently, the immigration judge corps hit a record high, though the Justice Department still has to contend with judges leaving over policy disagreements...MORE

Let's cut to the heart of the matter:

The Justice Department has imposed case quotas, given more power to the director charged with overseeing the courts, reversed rulings, curtailed judges' ability to exercise discretion in some cases and moved to decertify the union of immigration judges. 

Imposed case quotas = assigned more work
More power to director = less power for judges
Reversed rulings = less power for judges
Curtailment of ability to exercise discretion = less authority for judges
Decertify the union = less power for judges as a group

More work and less power...and they quit.
Perhaps there is a model here to be applied across the entire federal enterprise.