Jeff Sessions is exerting unprecedented control over immigration courts — by ruling on cases himself

[An important piece on an underreported topic: the power Jeff Sessions has to make the immigration court system even worse than it is. And there's a real danger that he’ll use this power.—TPOI editor]

Jeff Sessions. Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

The attorney general is poised to issue decisions that could determine the fate of tens of thousands of immigrants.

By Dara Lind, Vox

May 14, 2018

The fate of tens of thousands of immigrants’ court cases could rest in the hands of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

That’s not a metaphor. Sessions has stepped into the immigration system in an unprecedented manner: giving himself and his office the ability to review, and rewrite, cases that could set precedents for a large share of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants with pending immigration court cases, not to mention all those who are arrested and put into the deportation process in future.

He’s doing this by taking cases from the Board of Immigration Appeals — the Justice Department agency that serves as a quasi-appellate body for immigration court cases — and referring them to himself to issue a decision instead.[…]

Read the full article:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/14/17311314/immigration-jeff-sessions-court-judge-ruling