Throughout the department of justice, fear, anxiety and angry bosses

The new head of the Immigration Office of the Department of Justice sent a severe message to the staff this week: the credible reports suggested that some employees had participated in “abhorrent” misconduct that was “contrary to the law.”

On Monday the Pilot of Sirce E. Owen, the interim director of the Executive Office of Immigration Review was issued. For many of the recipients, he pointed out that the dismissals and reallocations that began hours after President Trump assumed the position last week, he would surely continue.

At the headquarters of the Department of Justice in the center of Washington, lawyers who specialize in matters ranging from national security to the environment to criminal work described the alarm and uncertainty that have been extended by the agency. For some, the vertiginous rhythm of change has generated concerns about the independence tradition of the department and its commitment to the rule of law given the speed with which Mr. Trump has moved to say goodbye to those who see as unfair.

Professional prosecutors responsible for investigating the president were fired abruptly. The senior officials have been reallocated, including the highest official of his career who often acted as a critical and neutral referee of ethical issues. Others have still been relegated to areas outside their experience.

“Whatever I will ask, the answer is that I have no idea,” said a veteran of the Department of Justice on Tuesday, expressing astonishment for the speed of change and speaking under condition of anonymity for fear of remuneration.

The brief in which the highest immigration official of the agency leveled against its own employees stressed the change. Even when their memoranda described the work of deportation managed by immigration judges, the language echoed the criticism of Mr. Trump and his assistants have addressed the department under the Biden administration, accusing him of being armed.

The office, wrote Mrs. Owen, “has faced multiple accusations of inequitable treatment of its employees in the last four years, including excessively favorable treatment for so -called elites, a very disparate treatment of components not related to the U -size Operations of each component and, perhaps, and, perhaps, and, perhaps, and, perhaps, and, perhaps, the most distressed: disciplinary or corrective measures widely variable for similar misleading behavior. “

“These practices, which are antithetical to the values ​​of Eoir and undermine their effectiveness as an agency, are to cease immediately,” he added.

Another memorandum, which promised to commit again to the “central values ​​and the rule of law” of the office, punished staff not to “read policies obtained or ridiculously.” All policies, he wrote, “should be read with a minimum of common sense.”

To add to his litany of complaints, he complained that some immigration judges “were pressed, tacitly attacked and threatened” by the managers and the office of the attached attorney general because they did not immediately reopen cases in which a Deportation decision. “Such practice is abhorrent, contrary to the law, and erodes the integrity of Eoir and the decision -making independence of his judges.”

Only on Trump’s first day in office, four senior officials in the Immigration Office were fired, by default how drastically the administration can remodel some parts of the department to try to carry out the broader immigration repression of the president.

Other senior officials of the Department of Justice, some with decades of experience in complex areas such as extradition, public corruption and antimonopoly application, were told deportation efforts.

Dozens of the employees of the higher departments are hiring or considering hiring employment lawyers to defend themselves from what violations of civil service laws can be destined to guarantee the professionalism of government workers.

Legal experts say that prosecutors dismissed for their work for special advisor Jack Smith may have the strongest legal claim against the government, particularly since the reason cited by the interim attorney general, James Mchenry, was a lack of confidence.

For many lawyers, the reason offered by Mr. Mchenry, which the President has authority under article II of the Constitution, was weak, and the actions violated both the letter and the spirit of the law of long data.

At the United States prosecutor in Washington, where some of the prosecutors had worked until Monday, the interim chief, Ed Martin, offered how a department could be under Mr. Trump.

In an email on Tuesday reviewed by the New York Times, Mr. Martin regretted leaking about a recent directive informing staff members that would open an internal investigation into the use of an obstruction statute to accuse hundreds of protesters who participated on January 6. , 2021, Capitol attack.

“Wow, what disappointment to have my email yesterday for everyone leaked almost immediate professionally unacceptable. “

Mr. Martin, in his message, told his employees that he was waiting for a preliminary report for Friday. For some current and previous officials of the Department of Justice, that raised the possibility that they will soon follow more shots.

Mr. Martin insisted that personnel members should fulfill quickly and deliver documents and other related records. If they have nothing to provide, he asked the employees to transmit that, and added: “The fact of not doing so seems insubordinate.”

Good government defenders worried that Monday’s dismissal can lead to erosion of confidence in the legal system, both inside and outside the department.

“Our justice system depends on the prosecutors do their work” without fear or favor, “said Max Stier, executive director of the Association for Public Service, a non -profit organization that works to promote best practices in the Federal Government. “Summarily trigger federal prosecutors undergoing these systems, the rule of law and public confidence in our government.”

Glenn Thrush Contributed reports.