Presidential Transition Immigration hard-liner Sessions could execute crackdown as AG The GOP senator has long been a lonely voice on immigration. At the DOJ he'd have vast powers over the issue.

For two decades in the Senate, Jeff Sessions led an anti-immigration crusade that made him an outlier in GOP politics — raging against illegal immigration and an excess of foreign workers well before Donald Trump tore onto the political scene.

But next year, Sessions likely will be the one engineering the immigration crackdown.


If confirmed as Trump’s attorney general, the Alabama senator would instantly become one of the most powerful people overseeing the nation’s immigration policy, with wide latitude over the kinds of immigration violations to prosecute and who would be deported.

As the nation’s top cop, Sessions would be able to direct limited department resources to pursuing immigration cases. He could launch federal investigations into what he perceives as discrimination against U.S. citizens caused by immigration. He would be in charge of drafting legal rationales for immigration policies under the Trump administration.

And Sessions, as attorney general, could find ways to choke off funding for “sanctuary cities,” where local officials decline to help federal officials identify undocumented immigrants so they can be deported.

Some immigrant advocates are alarmed by the idea of a Justice Department led by someone they see as far outside the mainstream.

“Sen. Sessions’ public statements and history on immigration give [us] real reason to be concerned that his positions, if confirmed as attorney general, would not uphold the values embodied in the Constitution to protect due process and fairness,” said Greg Chen, director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

But admirers of the Alabama senator say he’d bring about a much-needed break from the immigration policies of the past eight years.

“He’s got an absolutely huge role in it,” said Hans von Spakovsky, a former DOJ official under President George W. Bush, of the influence that Sessions would wield over immigration as attorney general. “I don’t expect any surprises. He’s been very up front in saying he wants to see the law enforced.”

So far, Sessions has faced little resistance from fellow Senate Republicans, indicating he would likely clinch the minimum 51 votes needed to be installed at DOJ once his nomination comes up in the Senate next year. Democrats have signaled that Sessions’ views on immigration will surface during hearings, but without help from Republicans, there’s nothing they could do to block Sessions’ confirmation.

Sessions has often been on the losing side of immigration clashes in the Senate, adopting stances at times seen as too restrictive even for fellow Republicans.

He fought tooth and nail against a comprehensive immigration reform measure drafted by the so-called Gang of Eight in 2013. He advocated not only against legalizing undocumented immigrants but also pushed for a hard cap on all legal immigrants — a policy that had little support, even from Republicans.

And last year, Sessions led a doomed effort to defund President Barack Obama’s controversial executive actions on immigration through a spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security.

One of Sessions’ major powers as attorney general would be his oversight of the immigration courts, formally known as the Executive Office of Immigration Review. That’s the venue where immigrants make their case before a judge on why they should not be deported.

The system is notoriously backlogged, with nearly 522,000 cases currently pending, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, which monitors cases. Sessions could try to speed up the process by installing more judges, particularly ones who align with his tough-on-immigration views. Immigration judges are usually career DOJ attorneys who are hired under guidelines that Sessions could influence should he become attorney general.

Sessions could also exert control through the Board of Immigration Appeals. An immigrant who disagrees with a judge’s decision can appeal to this board, whose 17 members are appointed by the attorney general and write decisions that can set a broad precedent.

But Sessions, as attorney general, would have authority to single-handedly take on a case in the immigration courts himself if he disagrees with a judge’s ruling. Then Sessions’ decision would become binding, unless a federal court intervenes. Experts say that doesn’t happen often, but it is possible.

“He’ll have a lot of influence over what decisions are made or how they are made,” said Jacinta Ma, director of policy and advocacy for the National Immigration Forum, which has raised concerns about Sessions’ nomination as attorney general.

As attorney general during the Clinton administration, Janet Reno issued key orders on who can qualify for asylum in the United States, including a 2001 decision that paved the way for asylum in severe cases of domestic abuse and a 1994 ruling that did the same for immigrants fearing persecution due to their sexual orientation.

“They can literally write opinions that have the force of law and interpret federal immigration law,” said Karen Tumlin, legal director at the National Immigration Law Center. “Would a Sessions-led Justice Department lead to humanizing changes in immigration law? Unfortunately, evidence is to the contrary.”

Sessions would have similarly expansive powers when it comes to enforcing immigration law. The attorney general sets guidelines for the types of violations federal prosecutors should pursue.

Von Spakovksy said a Sessions-led Justice Department could, for example, ramp up enforcement of a current ban on employers hiring those who are here illegally.

“If the employer provision is enforced and the news gets out that the Justice Department is finally enforcing that provision … that will lead to large numbers of individuals self-deporting,” said von Spakovsky, now a senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Sessions would also be in position to carry out a Trump campaign promise to punish “sanctuary cities” by choking off funding to cities such as Chicago and New York City that don’t cooperate with the feds when it comes to immigration enforcement.

Though those mayors already have vowed to keep their sanctuary status under a President Trump, Sessions as attorney general could figure out how to close the spigot of federal grants administered by DOJ to cities that don’t plan to cooperate on immigration. One way is by making some level of immigration cooperation a condition of receiving DOJ grants, experts said.

And while the Obama Justice Department sued states such as Arizona and Sessions’ home state of Alabama that tried to implement their own tough immigration enforcement laws, no one expects the hard-liner Sessions to do so as attorney general.

Instead, a Sessions-led Justice Department could actually pursue lawsuits against sanctuary cities to force them to comply with the Trump administration, immigration experts said.

“I would not be surprised if they take that tack,” said Dan Cadman, a research fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors more restrictive immigration laws.

It’s not just illegal immigration policies that have riled up Sessions. Last year, he and a bipartisan group of senators pressed then-Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate potential visa abuses at Southern California Edison, a utility company that had been accused of laying off hundreds of workers in favor of cheaper foreign workers through the H-1B visa program.

As attorney general, Sessions would be in a position to lead those investigations himself.

The Justice Department also oversees the solicitor general — the administration’s top lawyer who argues cases before the Supreme Court, which regularly takes up immigration cases.

The attorney general also oversees the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Sessions could work in tandem with the Department of Homeland Security to ensure that immigrants here illegally would be deported immediately after serving time.

All of this has alarmed immigrant-rights groups, who acknowledge they face an uphill battle to defeat Sessions’ nomination but are fighting it regardless.

“The biggest concern is, can the person who is charged with enforcing our nation’s laws be fair to immigrants?” said Ma, of the National Immigration Forum. “It’s something the Senate Judiciary Committee and all the senators really have to take a hard look at.”

