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Alex Wong/Getty Images North America
Tania Nemer is one of dozens of immigration judges fired by the Trump administration this year.
But a new lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., suggests what happened to Nemer—and why—has the potential to scramble the federal workforce and upend foundational civil rights laws.
Nemer alleges that despite top performance reviews, she was dismissed from her job because of her gender, her status as a dual citizen of Lebanon, and the fact that she once ran for municipal office in Ohio as a Democrat. Those reasons, she says, are all in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the First Amendment.
The government has responded by arguing the president’s power to oversee the executive branch under Article II of the U.S. Constitution essentially overrides that core civil rights law, Nemer’s attorney said.
“This is a case in which the President of the United States has asserted a constitutional right to discriminate against federal employees,” wrote her lawyer, Nathaniel Zelinsky, of the Washington Litigation Group. “If the government prevails in transforming the law, it will eviscerate the professional, non-partisan civil service as we know it.”
The administration abruptly fired Nemer in early February, summoning her from the bench and escorting her out of a federal building in Cleveland. Both her supervisor and the chief immigration judge there told her they didn’t know why she was being dismissed in the middle of her probationary period, the lawsuit said.
Federal workers on probationary status have fewer rights to contest their firing than other civil servants do, but they are still covered by constitutional protections barring retaliation for their political speech; and by civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and national origin.
Nemer filed a formal discrimination complaint with an Equal Employment Opportunity office a month after she was fired. That office dismissed her claims in September, asserting in its decision that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act conflicts with the president’s power to remove federal workers within the executive branch.
The implications sweep far beyond a single immigration judge, the new lawsuit said.
“According to the final agency decision, the President may now fire female federal workers like Ms. Nemer—because of their sex—and the law would have nothing to say about it,” according to the new lawsuit. “According to the final agency decision, the President can now fire federal workers born to immigrant parents with dual citizenship like Ms. Nemer—because of their national origin—and they would have no recourse. And under the same logic, the President can fire federal workers like Ms. Nemer—because of their political activities and affiliations—and the courts would be powerless to act.”
Nemer is seeking reinstatement, backpay and an order erasing her termination.
She said she never got official notice about any reasons for her dismissal.
But her lawsuit pointed out that in the administrative process, a senior Justice Department immigration official mentioned driving offenses from the late 1990s and early 2000s as well as two local tax cases Nemer had disclosed as part of a background check to become an immigration judge—issues her lawsuit casts as a “pretext.”
The Justice Department declined to comment on the lawsuit.
