The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026, refused to pause a court judgment that threw out a 2024 rule letting immigration judges set aside some deportation cases, a process called administrative closure. The order leaves in place an agreement between the Trump administration’s Justice Department and Texas that ended the rule nationwide in June.
The one-sentence order in City of Baltimore, Maryland v. Texas (No. 26A500) said the application “presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.” The court gave no reasons, and SCOTUSblog reported there were no noted dissents.
What administrative closure is
The Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Justice Department agency that runs the nation’s immigration courts, adopted the rule in a final regulation titled “Efficient Case and Docket Management in Immigration Proceedings.” It was published in the Federal Register on May 29, 2024, and took effect July 29, 2024.
Under the regulation, administrative closure is the temporary suspension of a case. It takes the case off a judge’s active calendar without ending it, and either side can later ask to put it back on the calendar. The 2024 rule said closure can make sense when an immigrant has a separate application pending with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that could give them legal status, such as a U visa. U visas are available to certain crime victims who help police and prosecutors.
The 2024 rule also largely replaced a December 2020 regulation, issued in President Trump’s first term, that would have restricted administrative closure. A federal court blocked that 2020 rule shortly after it was issued, in a lawsuit brought by Centro Legal de la Raza, one of the groups that went to the Supreme Court this month.
How the rule was thrown out
According to the court filings, the case moved quickly. Texas sued the Justice Department on June 22, 2026, in the Wichita Falls Division of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, arguing the immigration court agency had no legal authority to adopt the rule. Within hours, before the department had formally appeared in the case, Texas and the department jointly asked for a consent judgment.
Chief U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor entered it the same day. The judgment vacated the rule nationwide, declared that “no statute authorizes immigration judges to indefinitely administratively close or suspend adjudication of a case before them,” and permanently barred the department from adopting a similar rule without an express basis in law. Both sides waived their right to appeal.
The challengers’ application says the immigration court agency’s acting director had earlier issued a policy memo stating the agency “could not—and will not—defend the [Rule] in good faith against legal challenge.”
Who challenged it and why the courts said no
On Aug. 7, three cities with large immigrant populations, Baltimore, Columbus, Ohio, and New Haven, Connecticut, joined Centro Legal de la Raza, a California nonprofit that represents immigrants, in asking to enter the case so they could appeal. Judge O’Connor ruled on Aug. 21 that they lacked standing, the legal right to sue. He and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit both refused to pause the judgment while the appeal goes forward.
The cities argued that more deportations would cut their income-tax revenue and hurt public safety by weakening protections for crime victims who cooperate with police. Their filing says Baltimore alone has identified at least 600 pending or approved U visa applications. Centro Legal said it represents 80 to 100 immigrants whose cases had been administratively closed.
Their lawyer, Joshua Salzman of Democracy Forward, called the agreement the product of “egregious collusion.” He wrote that if such a judgment is allowed to stand, “any agency can avoid the strictures of the” federal law governing agency rulemaking “by advertising its unwillingness to defend a disfavored regulation and by immediately acquiescing to nationwide relief.”
Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices the request “attempts to improperly leverage a clear-cut dispute over” whether the groups could join the case “into a far-reaching attack on the merits.” His brief said the judgment does not require judges to put cases that are already closed back on the calendar, and that immigrants can still seek other delays, such as continuances. Citing the agency’s memo, the brief said administratively closed cases rose from nearly 172,000 in January 2013 to more than 268,000 in January 2017, and that closures before immigration judges last an average of 15 years.
What it means for Massachusetts
Massachusetts was not a party to the case, but the judgment applies nationwide, including to the state’s two immigration courts. The Boston Immigration Court sits in the JFK Federal Building at 15 New Sudbury St., and the Chelmsford Immigration Court is at 150 Apollo Drive in Chelmsford. Going forward, judges in both courts cannot use the 2024 rule to set aside new cases. The federal government has not published figures on how many Massachusetts cases are currently administratively closed.
The ruling adds to a series of immigration fights that have reached Boston, from federal immigration operations and the city’s response to the City Council’s Haitian TPS shelter resolution. The Boston Report has also explained what the Supreme Court ruled on third-country deportations. The Boston Report tracks the administration’s executive actions on its Trump presidency tracker.
What happens next
Tuesday’s order only decided whether to pause the judgment. The cities’ and Centro Legal’s appeal of the intervention ruling is still pending at the 5th Circuit, case No. 26-10794. Unless a court later reverses the judgment, immigration judges nationwide cannot administratively close new cases under the 2024 rule.
Sources
- Supreme Court of the United States, Docket No. 26A500, City of Baltimore, Maryland v. Texas
- Application for a stay filed by Baltimore, Columbus, New Haven and Centro Legal de la Raza (Oct. 9, 2026)
- Solicitor General’s response opposing the stay (Oct. 22, 2026)
- Federal Register, Efficient Case and Docket Management in Immigration Proceedings (May 29, 2024)
- eCFR, 8 CFR 1003.18, Docket management
- SCOTUSblog, “Court declines to restore Biden-era regulation allowing some deportation proceedings to be suspended” (Oct. 27, 2026)
Additional sources
- The Washington Post, coverage of the Oct. 27 order
- The Associated Press, coverage of the Oct. 27 order
- U.S. Department of Justice, EOIR immigration court administrative control list
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