Fewer judges serving backlogged Colorado immigration courts after firings and severance offers

Colorado has a backlog of more than 73,000 immigration cases pending before the courts, but now there are fewer judges to hear those cases.

An immigration judge serving at the Aurora Immigration Court, housed at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement GEO Group detention facility, was fired this month by the Trump administration.

The court's website now lists just one judge serving there, where 1,200 people are detained.

Two other judges at the Immigration Court in downtown Denver took voluntary separation offers, sources tell CBS News. The Denver Immigration Court lists six judges still serving.

The union representing the judges says these actions are harming judicial independence. Immigration judges are represented by the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers.

Matt Biggs is the president of the IFPTE, and said, "the administration's intention is to actually enforce immigration laws very strictly. You do that by having a healthy supply of immigration judges, and this administration is going in the opposite direction; they're actually firing the very judges that need to hear these cases."

The union says it takes at least a year to hire and onboard a new immigration judge.

The Justice Department's Executive Office of Immigration Review, which oversees the nation's immigration courts, declined to comment.