Special Report: How Trump administration left indelible mark on U.S. immigration courts

FILE PHOTO: Migrants deported from the U.S. walk towards Mexico at the Paso del Norte International border bridge, in this picture taken from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico February 25, 2021. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez/File Photo

(Reuters) - On a rainy September day in 2018, Jeff Sessions, then U.S. attorney general, addressed one of the largest classes of newly hired immigration judges in American history.

"The vast majority of asylum claims are not valid," he said during a swearing-in ceremony in Falls Church, Virginia, according to his prepared remarks. If judges do their job, he said, “the number of illegal aliens and the number of baseless claims will fall."