Supreme Court Refuses to Revive Biden Rule Letting Judges Pause Deportation Cases

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to restore a Biden-era rule that allowed immigration judges to suspend some deportation proceedings, leaving in place a deal between Texas and the Trump administration that threw it out.

In a brief, unsigned order, the court denied an emergency request from Baltimore; Columbus, Ohio; New Haven, Connecticut; and the immigrant legal services group Centro Legal de la Raza, SCOTUSblog reported. No justice noted a dissent.

The regulation, adopted in 2024 by the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, formalized a practice known as administrative closure. It let judges set aside some cases, for example while a crime victim sought asylum or other relief.

Texas sued in June in Wichita Falls, where the case went to Chief U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, the only federal judge there. The state called the rule “one part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s campaign to undermine our immigration laws.”

Within hours, the Justice Department joined Texas in asking O’Connor to enter judgment for the state, throw out the rule and bar the immigration review office from adopting a similar one. O’Connor granted the requests the same day.

On Aug. 7, the cities and the legal group asked to join the case so they could defend the rule on appeal, since neither Texas nor the federal government would. O’Connor ruled they lacked standing, and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to block the judgment.

‘Egregious Collusion’ Claim

At the Supreme Court, the challengers’ attorney, Joshua Salzman of Democracy Forward, called the agreement the product of “egregious collusion.”

The challengers filed their emergency application on Oct. 9. The justices denied it without comment four days after briefing was complete.

He warned that if it stood, “any agency can avoid the strictures of” federal administrative law “by advertising its unwillingness to defend a disfavored regulation and by immediately acquiescing to nationwide relief.”

Solicitor General D. John Sauer countered that the request tried to turn “a clear-cut dispute” over who could join the case into “a far-reaching attack on the merits” of the agreement.

Texas told the justices that pausing the ruling “would revive a rule the district court declared unlawful” and renew the injuries the state had alleged.

The cities said the rule helped crime victims and neglected juveniles, the Associated Press reported. Texas argued the practice was dramatically expanded under former President Joe Biden and effectively let people stay in the country indefinitely.

The ruling clears the way for the administration to restrict a policy that judges have used to close thousands of deportation cases each year, The Washington Post reported. The cities’ appeal continues in the 5th Circuit.

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