Supreme Court Leaves in Place the Texas Deal That Bars Immigration Judges From Shelving Deportation Cases
In a one-sentence order with no public dissent, the justices declined Tuesday to reinstate 'administrative closure' — the decades-old practice, used in hundreds of thousands of cases, that Texas and the Trump administration agreed to end in a Texas court in June.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to reinstate the authority of immigration judges to temporarily postpone deportation cases, keeping in place an agreement between the Trump administration and Texas that bars the once-common practice known as administrative closure, Reuters reported.
The justices denied an emergency request by three U.S. cities including Baltimore and an immigrant legal advocacy group to halt the deal while litigation continues, Reuters reported. The decision came as a brief, one-sentence order with no explanation, as is common for emergency requests, and none of the justices publicly dissented.
The case began in Texas. The administration and Texas filed their agreement in a federal court in Texas on June 22, the same day the state sued to challenge the immigration court procedure, and a federal judge swiftly approved it, according to Reuters. Baltimore and the other litigants say the federal government improperly colluded with Texas to secure the rule's invalidation. Baltimore, New Haven, Columbus and an Oakland legal-aid nonprofit challenged the ruling, the Texas Tribune reported, arguing among other things that the bar applies even to people who qualify for legal status through marriage to a U.S. citizen or crime-victim visas.
Immigration judges relied on administrative closure for decades to clear certain deportation cases off their dockets, including when separate proceedings involving the same person are pending that could prevent removal, such as a visa petition or an appeal of a criminal conviction, Reuters reported, and the practice has been applied in hundreds of thousands of cases. Critics including Texas and the Trump administration have said it allowed immigrants who lack legal status to remain indefinitely in the United States, acting in effect like an amnesty, the report said. The litigants challenging the deal said in a statement that eliminating the protections puts vulnerable people at greater risk of deportation, Reuters reported.
