Attorney General Merrick Garland on July 15 overturned an immigration court decision that banned judges from halting the hearing of deportation cases they deem to be low priority. Thursday’s ruling would allow immigration judges to practise a docket management tool called “administrative closure” to remove cases from their docket without declaring them closed, if deemed appropriate. Administrative closure does not terminate or dismiss the case, but instead removes it from an immigration judge’s active calendar or from the docket. Judges were unable to practise administrative closure under former President Donald Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who made a series of changes to the immigration court system that continued under his successor, William Barr. Sessions said at the time that the practice “lacks a valid legal foundation, and I do not believe it would be appropriate to delegate such authority” to judges because it led to a majority of cases never being resolved. Garland wrote that other court cases found …