Supreme Court denies cities' bid to revive rule letting immigration judges pause deportation cases

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, Oct. 27, declined to halt a federal judgment striking down a 2024 rule allowing immigration judges to temporarily set aside some deportation cases. The docket in City of Baltimore, Maryland v. Texas, No. 26A500, records that the stay application “presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.” The entry notes no dissent and gives no reasons.¹

The applicants were the cities of Baltimore, Columbus, Ohio, and New Haven, Connecticut, and Centro Legal de la Raza, a nonprofit legal services provider based in Oakland, California.² Their counsel of record is Joshua M. Salzman of Democracy Forward Foundation, the docket shows.¹

The rule and the judgment

The rule, “Efficient Case and Docket Management in Immigration Proceedings,” was issued by the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review, published May 29, 2024, and took effect July 29, 2024. It describes administrative closure as the “temporary suspension of a case,” which takes it off the active calendar until a party asks to restore it and that request is granted.³

Texas sued in federal court in Wichita Falls on June 22, 2026. That same day, Texas and the Justice Department jointly asked for a consent judgment, and Chief U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor of the Northern District of Texas entered one, according to the applicants and a later order by O'Connor. The judgment declared the rule contrary to law, vacated it and permanently enjoined its enforcement, along with limits on future administrative closure rules, and recorded that the parties waived appeal.²⁴

On Aug. 21, O'Connor denied the cities and Centro Legal permission to intervene, ruling that none had standing to sue. He wrote that a city's “loss of general tax revenues as an indirect result of federal policy is not a cognizable injury in fact,” under 5th Circuit precedent. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a stay without written opinion on Sept. 29, and that appeal, No. 26-10794, is pending, the application says.⁴²

What each side argued

The applicants wrote that “the need for interim relief is underscored by the collusion that infected this suit from its inception.” They argued the judgment reached provisions Texas never challenged, and said Centro Legal represents 80 to 100 noncitizens whose cases have been administratively closed.²

Solicitor General D. John Sauer, for the federal government, argued that neither the rule nor the judgment regulates the applicants and that the cities’ tax-revenue theory rests on a “highly attenuated chain of possibilities.” The filing cites a memo by the immigration office’s acting director saying the office “could not—and will not—defend” the rule in good faith. It says administratively closed cases rose from nearly 172,000 in January 2013 to over 268,000 in January 2017. It says the judgment “does not require recalendaring” of cases already closed. The federal filing does not address the collusion claim.⁵

Texas, represented by Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office and America First Legal Foundation, argued the rule “transformed administrative closure from a limited docket-management device into indefinite non-adjudication” and that the applicants lack standing to appeal. Responding to the collusion argument, Texas wrote that “[a]greement over liability or remedy does not itself eliminate Article III jurisdiction” and that the applicants “identify no false fact or sham plaintiff.” It also wrote that the judgment “does not order any case recalendared.”⁶

What the records do not show

• The court's order gives no reasoning and no vote count.¹
• No filing SignalData reviewed says how many cases are administratively closed today.
• The 5th Circuit has not yet ruled on the merits of the intervention appeal.²
• SignalData did not open the text of the June 22 judgment itself; its terms here come from O'Connor's Aug. 21 order and the applicants' filing.⁴²