Major Supreme Court move puts thousands of shelved deportation cases back in play

The conservative-majority Supreme Court handed the Trump administration another big immigration win on Tuesday.

The justices “cleared the way for the Trump administration to restrict a Biden-era policy that allows immigration judges to use their discretion to close thousands of deportation cases each year,” The Washington Post reported.

The practice, called “administrative closure,” lets judges set aside cases without dismissing them. Immigration advocates say it eases the burden on backlogged immigration courts and spares migrants with strong claims to stay, such as crime victims or neglected children, from removal proceedings. Critics have called it backdoor amnesty.

Judges have used some form of administrative closure for decades. Government data show about 360,000 migrants have had cases closed this way since 1990. The first Trump administration moved to ban the practice, and the Biden administration wrote it into regulation in 2024. Because those cases were never dismissed, the Post noted, they could now be reopened.

The rule’s fate was sealed largely outside the Supreme Court. After Trump returned to office, his administration dropped its defense of the Biden rule. Texas sued over it in a Texas federal court; the Justice Department sided with the state, and the judge issued a permanent injunction blocking the policy.

Baltimore, Columbus, Ohio, and New Haven, Connecticut, all cities with large immigrant populations, joined an immigrant rights group in trying to step in and defend the rule. Lower courts refused to let them intervene, and they appealed to the Supreme Court.

The justices turned the appeal away in an unsigned opinion without explaining their reasoning. The order did not rule on whether the policy itself is lawful. It leaves the Texas injunction in place.