 |
|
Immigration judges — who are employed by the Justice Department, not the judicial branch — make critical decisions about who gets asylum and green cards to stay in the United States and who must return to their home countries, shaping the lives of immigrants and their families and the fate of Trump’s crackdown.
The judges have been taking a harder line under Trump than in the previous administration, denying 65 percent of asylum cases during the 2018 fiscal year, compared with 55 percent two years earlier, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
Last year, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued guidance narrowing the scope of asylum claims, though it was later blocked by a judge. Other new rules set performance targets for judges and bar them from shelving cases.
|
|
|
|
