Following President Donald Trump’s latest attack on Jeff Sessions, the attorney general made yet another attempt to tighten control of the immigration courts.
One of the two moves Tuesday night further restricted the discretion of immigration judges to show leniency to undocumented immigrants. In the other one, Sessions indicated he may further limit immigrants’ ability to be let out of detention while awaiting asylum.
The attorney general’s latest moves were immediately met with criticism by both the immigration judges’ union and the national association for immigration lawyers, who say these efforts threaten the due process rights of immigrants as well as the independence of judges. On the other hand, immigration hardliners welcomed the move, maintaining it helped restore immigration laws to their original intent.
The latest developments also follow an interview with the President earlier that day in which he blasted Sessions and again lamented his decision to recuse himself from the special counsel’s Russia probe. Trump further added he was very dissatisfied on immigration, saying “I don’t have an attorney general. It’s very sad. I’m not happy at the border. I’m not happy with numerous things.”
However, the attorney general has so far repeatedly used his unique authority to implement an aggressive immigration policy which immigration judges have no other choice but to follow. On Tuesday, Sessions used that authority to refer himself more cases so he could rule on them.
He ruled that cases can only be closed or terminated if the Department of Homeland Security decides it no longer wants to pursue the case or the immigrant achieves or proves a legal right to stay in the U.S. Otherwise, a judge cannot use their discretion to dismiss a deportation case.
“The authority to dismiss or terminate proceedings is not a free-floating power an immigration judge may invoke whenever he or she believes that a case no longer merits space on the docket,” Sessions wrote.
The executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Benjamin Johnson, said in a statement the decision was “part of a systematic effort to marginalize the role of immigration judges in their own courtrooms.”
National Association of Immigration Judges President Ashley Tabaddor said the attorney general’s decision was “concerning.”
Be the first to comment