In his State of the Union address earlier this month, President Joe Biden referenced plans to dismantle America’s long-standing asylum program with the help of Congress through a “border bill.” While that bill has been stymied by Republican anti-immigration hard-liners—who view the bill’s harsh anti-immigrant components as not severe enough—without Congressional action, Biden might still block asylum-seekers through administrative action, largely shielded from public scrutiny. With such high stakes, the public’s ability to understand and assess these moves becomes increasingly crucial. Unfortunately, instead of increasing transparency, the administration is hampering the public’s access to information in the most anti-democratic of ways: They are silencing civil servants who are among the most equipped to describe what is happening within the immigration system: immigration judges.

More than four years ago, we—immigration law professors who teach across the country—decried the Trump administration’s gag rule against immigration judges speaking out about our immigration system. We were relieved when, in the first year of the Biden administration, immigration judges regained their ability to accept public speaking engagements and share their insights. However, in recent weeks, the Biden administration has begun mimicking the Trump administration’s silencing of these judges. This move comes just as Biden quietly tries to undermine the asylum system in the lead-up to the........

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