Supreme Court Keeps Ban on Immigration Judges Shelving Deportation Cases

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to reinstate a Biden era rule that let immigration judges temporarily shelve deportation cases, leaving in place an agreement between the Trump administration and Texas that ended the practice.

The court acted in a brief, unsigned, one sentence order. It gave no explanation, as is common with emergency requests, and no justice publicly dissented. The order denies an emergency request from three cities and an immigrant legal services group to put the rule back into effect while their appeal continues.

What administrative closure did

Administrative closure let immigration judges take a deportation case off the active calendar for a time without deciding it. Judges used the tool for decades, including when a separate proceeding involving the same person was still pending and could affect removal, such as a visa petition or an appeal of a criminal conviction. It also covered cases in which a crime victim or witness was helping law enforcement, or a person was seeking protection as a neglected child or a survivor of violent crime.

The practice has been applied in hundreds of thousands of cases. Texas and the Trump administration say it let people without legal status stay indefinitely, a form of amnesty. Supporters say it let judges manage crowded dockets fairly.

How the rule was erased in one day

The Biden administration adopted a regulation in 2024 that codified administrative closure. It replaced a 2020 rule from the first Trump term that had been blocked in court. After President Donald Trump returned to office in 2025, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Justice Department office that oversees immigration courts, said it would not defend the 2024 rule.

Texas sued on June 22, and the administration filed its agreement with Texas in federal court the same day. The two sides jointly asked US District Judge Reed O'Connor in Wichita Falls, Texas, to declare the rule unlawful. O'Connor approved the agreement the same day and blocked the rule across the country.

Baltimore, New Haven, Connecticut, and Columbus, Ohio, joined with Centro Legal de la Raza, a legal services provider, and tried to intervene to defend the rule. O'Connor rejected that bid, ruling that they lacked standing. The New Orleans based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals then declined to put the agreement on hold pending appeal.

The arguments at the Supreme Court

The cities and the legal group said the administration used what they called manufactured litigation with an ideologically aligned state to remove a regulation without the notice and public comment process federal agency law requires. They wrote that emergency relief was underscored by the collusion that infected the suit from its start. Skye Perryman of Democracy Forward, which represents the challengers, said the department had colluded with Texas to erase longstanding procedures in a single day.

The Justice Department answered that the challengers could not ask the court to step in after a judge ruled they had no right to defend the rule. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote that they should not be allowed to put the cart before the horse, and the department called their claims about how many people would be affected speculative.

What happens now

The order is not a final ruling on the 2024 rule's lawfulness. The rule stays blocked while litigation continues. Immigration judges lack the authority the rule gave them to pause cases, and cases that might once have been shelved will stay on active calendars. The case is Baltimore v. Texas, No. 26a500.