A former immigration judge appointed during President Donald Trump's first term, who rose to Assistant Chief Immigration Judge, has explained publicly why he walked away from the bench — and his account, published by Law.com on Tuesday, October 27, is now the clearest insider description yet of the pressure inside America's immigration courts in the second Trump administration. David Cheng left government service in 2025, took a year-long break to “clear his head,” and has now joined the New York immigration firm Gendelberg Law as an attorney in private practice, Law.com reported.

Source: Law.com / New York Law Journal

Cheng told Law.com that he departed because of ethical concerns about the second Trump administration's demands on the immigration courts, and that he felt he could not provide the same level of public service in government as he could in private practice under the second administration. Law.com's headline summed up his position in his own words: “I can't do this anymore.” The move ends a 25-year government career — a career that began on the government's side of the immigration courtroom and ended on the bench itself.

A career that touched every side of the immigration system

Gendelberg Law's announcement of the hire, issued through PR Newswire, sets out the full arc of that career. Within the U.S. Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) — the agency that runs the immigration courts — Cheng served first as an Immigration Judge at the Newark Immigration Court in New Jersey, and later as an Assistant Chief Immigration Judge, a leadership role in which he led multiple immigration courts, supervised and trained judges, and oversaw both detained and non-detained dockets, the firm said.

Source: Gendelberg Law via PR Newswire

Before his appointment to the bench, Cheng spent approximately 15 years with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Newark, serving as an Assistant Chief Counsel and later as a Senior Attorney — in other words, he spent a decade and a half arguing the government's side in removal cases. Earlier still, he practised law in New York City and served as an Administrative Law Judge for the New York City Department of Finance. Few practising immigration lawyers in the New York area can claim to have sat in every chair in the system: private attorney, government prosecutor, judge, and the supervisor of judges.

25 yearsLength of Cheng's government career, ended by his 2025 departure from the bench
~15 yearsCheng's service with ICE in Newark as Assistant Chief Counsel and Senior Attorney before the bench
2025Year Cheng left government service; he took a year-long break before joining Gendelberg Law
3 officesGendelberg Law's offices — Brooklyn and Manhattan in New York, and Washington, D.C.

What Cheng and his new firm say — in their own words

In the firm's announcement, Cheng framed his return to private practice in measured terms: “After more than two decades of federal service, I felt the time was right to use my experience and knowledge in a more direct way. My years in government gave me a deep understanding of immigration law, courtroom practice, and the challenges that arise throughout the process. Private practice allows me to apply that experience directly on behalf of individuals and families.” He added that his time as an Assistant Chief Immigration Judge gave him “a broad understanding of immigration law, policy, and court operations, as well as how cases are evaluated and where problems often arise.”

Source: Gendelberg Law via PR Newswire

Leonard R. Gendelberg, the firm's founder and managing attorney, said the hire was about what is at stake for clients: “Immigration cases are not simply files on a desk. The outcome can determine whether someone remains with their family, keeps the life they have built, or has the opportunity to begin a new one in the United States.” Sopiko Gugava, a senior legal analyst at the firm, put the same point from the client's side of the bench: “Behind every A-number is a human being who may be separated from a spouse, a child, or an entire life they have built here.” An A-number is the identification number the government assigns to a person in immigration proceedings.

Background: why one judge's exit matters beyond one firm

Immigration judges are not independent federal judges in the ordinary sense. They are attorneys employed by the Department of Justice inside EOIR, deciding removal cases under policies set by the Attorney General — which is why changes of administration can change the daily reality of their courtrooms, from docket speeds to the discretion they are allowed to exercise. That structural fact is the backdrop to Cheng's stated ethical concerns, as reported by Law.com: the demands he described were demands placed on the courts by the administration that also employs the judges.

The timing underlines the point. On the same day Law.com published Cheng's account, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to restore the Biden-era administrative-closure rule that had let immigration judges temporarily shelve some deportation cases while people pursued other legal protection — a separate story Awaaz Punjab has covered in full. Together, the two developments describe a system in which judges' room to pause, manage and pace cases is narrowing at the same time as at least one senior judge says the ethical cost of staying became too high. Law.com reported that Cheng was appointed during the first Trump term — he is not a career opponent of Republican immigration policy, which is part of what gives his departure its weight.

The diaspora angle — and what happens next

For Punjabi and other immigrant families in New York and New Jersey — including the large communities around New York City and Edison, New Jersey — the Newark and New York immigration courts are where removal cases are actually heard, and where backlogs and docket pressure are felt first. A former judge who supervised those courts and now works in removal defence on the other side is, in practical terms, a new resource for families in exactly those proceedings: Gendelberg Law says Cheng will work full-time across removal defence, asylum, detention and appeals, as well as family-based, employment, investor and humanitarian immigration. The firm, which practises exclusively in immigration law, has offices in Brooklyn and Manhattan and in Washington, D.C.

What happens next is not a court date but a caseload. Cheng's value to his new firm — and the test of his stated reason for leaving, that he can serve the public better from private practice — will be measured in the cases he now takes for people facing the system he used to run. His interview also leaves a question hanging over EOIR that no announcement answered: whether other immigration judges share the ethical concerns he described, and whether more departures follow. For now, the verified record is one senior judge, appointed by the first Trump administration, who concluded in 2025 that he could no longer do the job as it was being asked of him — and who said so, on the record, on October 27.