Sessions Curtails Immigration Judges’ Authority to Let Illegal Aliens Walk Free

Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a sweeping restriction Thursday on so-called “administrative closures” in the immigration courts that often allow aliens facing deportation to remain in the country indefinitely as their cases fall off the docket, never to be rescheduled.

In March, Sessions indicated he would use his power to overrule the Board of Immigration Review (BIR) to curtail immigration judges’ authority to drop cases without a decision. Thursday, he made good on this pledge, holding that “immigration judges and the Board do not have the general authority to suspend indefinitely immigration proceedings by administrative closure” in a ruling that will curtail one of the main “catch-and-release” methods that became popular under the Obama administration.

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