Supreme Court Won't Revive Rule Letting Immigration Judges Shelve Cases; Records Show Closed Cases Sat 16 Years on Average

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to restore a Biden-era rule that let immigration judges "administratively close" deportation cases, a tool that the immigration courts' own figures show kept many cases off the active docket for more than a decade.

The court's order in City of Baltimore v. Texas, No. 26A500, was one line long. According to the Supreme Court's docket, the application for a stay "presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied." No justice noted a dissent. The order leaves in place a judgment that Texas and the Justice Department agreed to on the same day Texas filed suit.

The applicants were the cities of Baltimore, Maryland; New Haven, Connecticut; and Columbus, Ohio, along with Centro Legal de la Raza, a legal services provider for immigrants. They are represented by Democracy Forward.

What the Court Records Show

Texas's June complaint, which the challengers attached to their Supreme Court application, quotes the Executive Office for Immigration Review's own statistics. As of July 31, 2025, the agency estimated that "the average length of time a case has been administratively closed is 6,120 days (approximately 16½ years) and the median length of time is 4,242 days (approximately 11½ years)." At the Board of Immigration Appeals, the average was 10,647 days, about 29 years.

The complaint also quotes an agency policy memo stating that "between January 2021 and January 2025, the number of administratively closed cases increased from nearly 278,000 to almost 392,000," while the immigration court backlog grew from about 1.68 million cases to more than 4.1 million.

The challengers describe the rule differently. Their application says it codified judges' discretion to pause cases "when doing so would promote efficiency or protect due process rights," for example so a crime victim or a neglected juvenile can pursue a pending application with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

How the Rule Ended in One Day

The rule, titled "Efficient Case and Docket Management in Immigration Proceedings," was issued in May 2024 by the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Justice Department office that runs the immigration courts.

Texas sued in June in federal court in Wichita Falls, where Chief U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor presides, arguing the Justice Department lacked authority to adopt the rule, SCOTUSblog reported. Within hours, the Justice Department agreed. The applicants' filing says the court entered a consent judgment and a permanent injunction "on the same day suit was filed" and vacated the rule nationwide.

The cities and Centro Legal tried to join the case to defend the rule on appeal. O'Connor ruled they lacked standing, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit refused to put the judgment on hold while their appeal continues.

What Each Side Told the Supreme Court

In their Oct. 9 application, the challengers called the case "an egregious new extension" of agencies using lawsuits to undo policies. They wrote that the government "announced in advance that it would not defend a disfavored regulation and then colluded with the challenger from the moment that suit was filed." The cities said ending the rule would hurt local policing, because crime victims who help investigators "will stop coming forward or will be removed mid-prosecution."

Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices the 2024 rule let immigration judges "indefinitely administratively close removal cases," often for decades, without resolving them on the merits. He argued the cities and Centro Legal "are not regulated by the vacated rule" and lack standing, and that their request "attempts to improperly leverage a clear-cut dispute over intervention into a far-reaching attack on the merits of a consent judgment."

Texas, represented by America First Legal Foundation, also urged the court to deny the request. SCOTUSblog reported that Texas warned a stay "would revive a rule the district court declared unlawful."

The order does not end the case. The cities' appeal of the denial of their bid to intervene remains before the Fifth Circuit.

Sources: Supreme Court docket, City of Baltimore v. Texas, No. 26A500: https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/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 ; Federal respondents' opposition (Oct. 22, 2026): https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26A500/430409/20261022153257048_Baltimore_v_Texas_stay_opp.pdf ; Texas's complaint, No. 7:26-cv-00070 (N.D. Tex., filed June 22, 2026), reproduced at App. 18a of the stay application; SCOTUSblog: https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/10/court-declines-to-restore-biden-era-regulation-allowing-some-deportation-proceedings-to-be-suspe/