The Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to intervene in a challenge to a Biden-era immigration rule, leaving in place a legal settlement between Texas and the Justice Department that prevents immigration judges from pausing deportation proceedings through administrative closure.
The action upholds an agreement that dismantles the administrative closure process, which had given immigration judges the discretion to temporarily suspend removal cases.
Cities and Immigrant Advocates Challenge the Justice Department Settlement
They argued that the policy allowed immigration judges to postpone proceedings in cases involving crime victims and neglected juveniles, protecting due process rights and promoting administrative efficiency. A common scenario involved a victim or witness of a crime who needed to apply for protection with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services while their deportation proceedings were on hold.
However, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) adopted a new rule in 2024 that once again gave immigration judges the discretion to halt some deportation proceedings.
Opponents represented by the group Democracy Forward described the agreement between Texas and the DOJ as egregious collusion
between the Republican-లాled state and the Trump administration.
Texas Lawsuit and the Fast-Track Settlement in Wichita Falls
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the federal government in June, arguing that the federal law requires an immigration judge to decide, at the end of the proceedings, whether a foreign national is deportable or not. The Lone Star State asserted that the continued presence of immigrants lacking permanent legal status caused fiscal, public safety, and sovereign harms. America First Legal, a group co-founded by Stephen Miller—a senior White House adviser and the architect of much of Trump’s immigration policy—helped represent Texas.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently refused to block the agreement and reinstate the rule while the appeal was pending.
announcing its unwillingness to defend an unfavorable regulation and immediately accepting nationwide relief.
Joshua Salzman, attorney for the cities and Centro Legal de la Raza, via Voz
Attorney General D. John Sauer asked the court to uphold the settlement, arguing that the plaintiffs’ motion sought to turn a dispute over their standing to intervene into a much broader attack on the merits of the case. Texas similarly argued that suspending O’Connor’s sentence would revive a rule that the district court declared unlawful and would reopen fiscal and sovereign liabilities for the state. Four days after the case was fully argued, the court denied the petition without comment, upholding the repeal of the administrative closure rule.