Supreme Court Leaves Trump Deportation-Case Closure Limits in Place
The Supreme Court denied an emergency request to revive a Biden-era rule allowing immigration judges to pause some deportation cases, leaving a Texas-Justice Department agreement in effect.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, denied an emergency request to restore a Biden-era regulation that gave immigration judges discretion to pause some deportation proceedings. The brief order leaves in place, for now, a lower-court judgment secured by Texas and President Donald Trump’s Justice Department that set the regulation aside.
The court’s public docket says the application in City of Baltimore v. Texas was presented to Justice Samuel Alito, referred to the full court and denied. The court gave no explanation, and no dissents were noted. Reuters and SCOTUSblog separately reported the result. The justices did not issue a final ruling on the regulation’s legality or decide the challengers’ underlying appeal.
What administrative closure allowed
The disputed 2024 regulation concerned “administrative closure,” a case-management tool that lets immigration judges temporarily remove certain proceedings from their active calendars. It does not grant lawful status or permanently cancel a deportation case. A judge can later return the matter to the calendar.
SCOTUSblog reported that the procedure could be used when a person needs time to pursue relief through another agency. One example is a crime victim or witness seeking asylum or another form of protection from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services while removal proceedings remain pending in immigration court.
How Texas and the Justice Department ended the rule
Texas sued the Justice Department in federal court in Wichita Falls in June 2026, arguing that the Executive Office for Immigration Review lacked authority to establish the rule and that federal law required judges to resolve removability. The case was assigned to Chief U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor.
Hours after Texas filed the lawsuit, the Trump Justice Department joined the state in asking O’Connor to enter judgment against the federal government, invalidate the regulation nationwide and bar the agency from adopting a similar rule. O’Connor approved the agreement that day. Because both original parties wanted the same result, no party to the case planned to defend the regulation on appeal.
Cities and an immigrant legal group objected
Baltimore, New Haven and Columbus, along with immigrant legal-services organization Centro Legal de la Raza, sought to intervene and defend the rule. They described the Texas-Justice Department agreement as collusive and argued that allowing an agency to abandon a regulation through an immediate consent judgment could bypass ordinary administrative-law requirements.
O’Connor rejected their effort to join the case, finding that they lacked standing. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit then declined to block the consent judgment while the intervention dispute continued. The challengers asked the Supreme Court to step in on October 9.
What the Supreme Court action means
The denial means the administrative-closure regulation remains unavailable while litigation continues, strengthening the Trump administration’s ability to keep deportation cases moving toward decisions rather than allowing judges to pause them under that rule. It does not itself require deportation in every affected case, and people may still pursue whatever forms of relief remain available under immigration law.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the justices to leave the agreement in place, arguing that the challengers were trying to turn a dispute over intervention into a broad attack on the judgment. Texas said a stay would revive a rule the district court had declared unlawful. The cities and legal group can continue litigating their attempt to participate, but Tuesday’s order provides no immediate restoration of the 2024 policy.
Sources and image credit
- U.S. Supreme Court docket — City of Baltimore v. Texas, No. 26A500
- SCOTUSblog — Court declines to restore Biden-era administrative-closure regulation
- Reuters via MSN — Supreme Court denies bid to restore immigration judges’ case-closure authority
- Image: U.S. Supreme Court building, Wikimedia Commons
- Original full-resolution image