Three Cities Ask Supreme Court to Undo One-Day Texas-DOJ Deal That Wiped Out Immigration Courts’ ‘Administrative Closure’ Rule, Alleging ‘Egregious Collusion’
Baltimore, Columbus and New Haven, joined by an Oakland legal-aid group, have asked the Supreme Court to put on hold a Texas court judgment that erased a 2024 immigration-court rule in a single day, arguing the Justice Department colluded with Texas to kill a regulation it did not want to defend and skipped the public rulemaking process the law requires.
The emergency application, City of Baltimore v. Texas, No. 26A500, was submitted Oct. 9 to Justice Samuel Alito, who handles emergency matters from the 5th Circuit, and docketed Thursday. Alito ordered Texas and the federal government to respond by 4 p.m. on Oct. 22.
THE RULE AT ISSUE
The regulation, issued by the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review in May 2024 after notice and comment, codified “administrative closure,” a decades-old practice that lets immigration judges temporarily suspend a removal case. The application says it is used, for example, when a crime victim or neglected juvenile has a pending application for a visa or other relief before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, so the person is not deported while that application is decided. Either side can ask to put the case back on the calendar.
Critics have long described administrative closure as a form of de facto amnesty. After the change in administration, the application says, EOIR’s new acting director issued a memorandum endorsing that view and announcing that the office would not defend the rule in court, but did not begin the repeal process under the Administrative Procedure Act.
HOW THE RULE WAS VACATED
According to the application, Texas then sued in the Wichita Falls division of the Northern District of Texas, where Chief U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor is the only judge. Within hours, the application says, the Justice Department joined Texas in a motion asking the court to enter final judgment for the state, to vacate the rule nationwide and to permanently enjoin EOIR from ever adopting a similar rule. The government, the cities say, gave up jurisdictional and remedial defenses it routinely raises and even acknowledged it was asking for a form of relief, universal vacatur, that it normally argues courts cannot grant. O’Connor entered the consent judgment the same day the suit was filed, June 22, 2026.
“The result is that a significant regulation that established certain important procedures in immigration courts was erased over the course of a single day, without meaningful judicial review, public participation, or adherence to the APA’s rulemaking requirements,” the application says. It describes the case as “an egregious new extension” of what Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Alito and Neil Gorsuch, called “rulemaking-by-collusive acquiescence” in a 2022 concurrence.
The three cities and Centro Legal de la Raza moved to intervene to defend the rule. O’Connor denied the motion in August, finding they lacked standing; the cities say he rejected the same theory of financial harm from deportations that Texas had used to establish its own standing. The judge denied a stay pending appeal on Sept. 2, and the 5th Circuit refused a stay without a written opinion. The cities’ appeal of both the intervention ruling and the judgment itself is still pending in the 5th Circuit.
WHAT THE CITIES WANT FROM THE SUPREME COURT
The application asks the justices to stay the judgment while that appeal proceeds, which would restore the administrative-closure rule for now. It argues the Supreme Court has done the same before, citing its 2022 stay in Arizona v. Mayorkas when Texas and other states sought to defend the Title 42 border policy after the federal government declined to, and says the stakes here reach “hundreds of thousands” of immigration-court cases.
“If a judgment procured through such open collusion is allowed to remain in effect, any agency can avoid the strictures of the APA by advertising its unwillingness to defend a disfavored regulation and by immediately acquiescing to nationwide relief,” wrote Joshua Salzman of Democracy Forward, counsel of record for the applicants. He noted that the court agreed five years ago to decide whether states may step in to defend a rule the government abandons, but dismissed that case without ruling.
The cities say the loss of the rule undercuts the U visa certifications their police departments use to secure cooperation from immigrant crime victims, and that their own taxpayers are among those whose removals Texas said would follow. Centro Legal says the judgment erases an earlier litigation victory and forces it to take on unfunded legal work.
Texas and the Justice Department have not yet filed their responses. The Justice Department under the current administration has argued that the 2024 rule exceeded EOIR’s authority, and the department and Texas told O’Connor the regulation was unlawful. A decision from Alito or the full court could come any time after the Oct. 22 deadline.
Sources: Supreme Court docket, City of Baltimore v. Texas, No. 26A500: https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/26a500.html | Application for a stay (Oct. 9, 2026): https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26A500/429099/20261009134727752_Baltimore%20v.%20Texas.pdf | SCOTUSblog, Amy Howe (Oct. 15, 2026): https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/10/challengers-ask-court-to-pause-agreement-between-texas-and-the-doj-on-deportation-proceedings/
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