The Supreme Court rejected efforts to reinstate a Biden administration policy permitting immigration judges to temporarily halt certain deportation cases. The justices, in an unsigned order, refused to block a Texas-Department of Justice pact that invalidated the rule after a legal challenge from three major cities and an immigrant advocacy organization.
No justice filed a dissenting opinion. The contested policy, known as administrative closure, was established by the Executive Office for Immigration Review—part of the Justice Department—in early 2024. It lets judges pause deportation hearings, such as when a victim or witness in a criminal case might later apply for asylum through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Background of the Dispute
Texas filed its lawsuit in June in federal court in Wichita Falls, where Judge Reed O’Connor was assigned the case. The state framed the rule as part of a broader effort by the Biden-Harris administration to weaken immigration laws, arguing that the agency lacked authority to implement it. Federal statutes, Texas claimed, mandate that judges must ultimately determine whether an individual is deportable.
Instead, it wrote, federal law requires an immigration judge, at the end of a proceeding, to “decide whether an alien is removable from the United States.” Just a few hours after the case was filed, the DOJ and Texas asked O’Connor to enter a final judgment for the state. The DOJ also asked him both to throw out the rule altogether and to issue an order making clear that the EOIR could not adopt a similar rule in the future.
Appeals and Requests
On August 7, Baltimore, New Haven, Columbus, and Centro Legal de la Raza-a nonprofit offering legal aid to immigrants-filed an emergency motion to intervene in the case. They aimed to defend the administrative closure rule on appeal, when neither Texas nor the federal government intended to do so.
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O’Connor denied their request on the ground that they lacked a legal right to sue, known as standing. In particular, he rejected the cities’ contention that the elimination of the rule would cost them money because their taxpayers are likely to be deported. The challengers then went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which rejected their request to block the consent judgment between Texas and the Department of Justice.
Urging the Supreme Court to leave the agreement in place, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer contended that the challengers’ request to pause O’Connor’s ruling “attempts to improperly leverage a clear-cut dispute over” the challengers’ efforts to join the case “into a far-reaching attack on the merits of” the court’s approval of the agreement.
Without issuing any explanation, the Supreme Court four days later rejected the challengers’ appeal. This means the Biden-era policy enabling judges to pause deportation cases remains invalid, for now.
Texas argued before the justices that halting O’Connor’s ruling would revive an unlawful regulation, reinstate the financial and legal harms the state claimed, and undermine a settled legal judgment between the actual parties involved. The Court’s decision to take no action leaves the Texas-DOJ agreement intact.
