Sessions takes aim at handling of immigration cases

SAN DIEGO — Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Friday launched a review of a little-known but widely used practice of immigration judges closing cases without decisions, potentially putting hundreds of thousands of people in greater legal limbo.

Sessions posed detailed questions challenging the use of “administrative closures,” an increasingly common outcome that allows people to stay in the country without legal status. The attorney general invited feedback from advocates and others, after which time he may issue new instructions for immigration judges nationwide.

Administrative closures have been a lifeline to immigrants who apply for citizenship, permanent residency or other visas, shielding them from deportation while their petitions are vetted. But critics say judges too often let people stay in the country longer than they should in a sort of legal purgatory.

About 350,000 cases are administratively closed, and the Justice Department said 180,000 cases were closed in four years of the Obama administration, more than in the previous 22 years. In 2012, the department’s Board of Immigration Appeals ruled neither Homeland Security Department attorneys seeking to deport someone nor the immigrant trying to stay could stop a judge from closing a case, paving the way for the increase.

Immigration judges are employees of the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, giving the attorney general broad oversight powers even as they assert independence. Sessions, a former U.S. senator from Alabama and immigration hardliner, signaled last month he planned to be heavily involved in setting policies aimed at reducing a court backlog of 650,000 cases and deciding cases more quickly, and Friday’s announcement was a step in that direction.