The Justice Department agency overseeing the nation’s immigration courts will limit mass preliminary hearings that bring large groups of people into close proximity across the country, escalating its response to the coronavirus but still falling short of the demands of people who preside over and practice in those venues.
Such hearings will be suspended from Monday until April 10, and one immigration court, in Seattle, will remain completely closed until that date. That Seattle court has been shuttered since a reported second-hand exposure to the virus last week, the Executive Office for Immigration Review has said.
The EOIR’s new measures, ...