US Supreme Court denies immigration judges the power to shelve deportation cases

None of the justices publicly dissented from the decision. The administration and ​Texas filed the agreement in a federal court in Texas on June 22, the same day that the state sued to challenge the immigration ​court procedure.

A federal judge swiftly approved the agreement on the same day. Baltimore and the other litigants said the federal ⁠government improperly colluded with Texas to secure the rule's invalidation. In a statement, the litigants and the lawyers representing them from the liberal legal group Democracy ​Forward expressed disappointment in Tuesday's decision.

"Eliminating these protections puts vulnerable people at greater risk of deportation and undermines public safety in communities across the country," they said ​in the statement. "This dangerous abuse of the judicial process threatens the rule of law and sets a troubling precedent for dismantling federal policies without meaningful public participation or judicial scrutiny," they added.

Representatives from the Justice Department and the Texas attorney general's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Immigration judges relied on administrative closure for decades to clear certain deportation ​cases off their busy dockets, including when separate proceedings involving the same person are pending that could prevent removal, such as on a visa petition or ​an appeal of a criminal conviction.

Critics including Texas and the Trump administration have said administrative closure has allowed immigrants who lack legal status to remain indefinitely in the United States, ‌acting in ⁠effect like an amnesty. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF CASESAdministrative closure has been applied over the years in hundreds of thousands of deportation cases.

Ending the practice is part of Trump's hardline approach toward immigrants. In 2024, Biden's administration adopted a regulation that formally codified administrative closure procedures, concluding that it lets judges efficiently manage their caseloads and promote the fair treatment of immigrants.

That regulation replaced a prior rule adopted in 2020 during Trump's first term in office that had been judicially blocked. After ​Trump returned to office in 2025, the ​Justice Department office that oversees immigration ⁠courts, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, announced it would not defend the Biden rule against a legal challenge.

In a lawsuit, Texas argued that the rule lets immigration judges "effectively grant indefinite amnesty to aliens illegally present in this country. "Trump's administration ​and the state then jointly asked US District Judge Reed O'Connor in Wichita Falls, Texas, to approve an agreement ​declaring the Biden rule ⁠unlawful.

O'Connor did so, blocking it permanently, nationwide. Three municipalities — Baltimore, New Haven, Connecticut, and Columbus, Ohio — and the legal services provider, Centro Legal de la Raza, sought to intervene in the case to defend the rule, but O'Connor rejected their bid.

The cities say they all have substantial immigrant populations. The New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of ⁠Appeals declined ​to put the agreement on hold pending an appeal of O'Connor's decision.

The cities and Centro Legal ​de la Raza a filing that Trump's administration circumvented a federal law governing agency procedures by using "manufactured litigation" with "ideologically aligned" Texas to eliminate a regulation it disliked. "The need ​for interim relief is underscored by the collusion that infected this suit from its inception," they wrote.