This week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions reversed a decision that gave asylum-seekers and applicants for withholding of removal a right to a full hearing even after deemed ineligible for asylum according to their paperwork. This upended the precedent set by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) four years ago.
Why it matters: This is an attempt to curtail the growing backlog in immigration courts by allowing quicker denials of these kinds of applications without a hearing. Devin O'Malley, a DOJ spokesperson, told Axios the BIA's decision had "added unnecessary cases to the dockets of immigration judges who are working hard to reduce an already large immigration court backlog.”