Sessions curbs authority of immigration judges

The New York Times reports that Sessions issued a directive ending the power of immigration judges to put a case on hold using administrative cloture, which judges have used in the past to suspend cases for immigrants awaiting a visa application or the appeal of their criminal conviction.

Sessions blames the process for allowing undocumented immigrants to remain in the U.S. indefinitely while judges leave their cases on pause.

The move could reopen hundreds of thousands of cases, but according to The Times will likely not reopen cases already closed under administrative cloture. Sessions wrote in his directive that such a change would overwhelm the administration's already-backlogged immigration case system.

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