The high court denied on October 27 the petition of three cities and a legal organization; the vacatur of the 2024 rule on administrative closure remains in effect while the litigation proceeds.
On October 27, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court denied an emergency application to reinstate the 2024 rule that allowed immigration judges to temporarily suspend certain deportation proceedings, a mechanism known as administrative closure. The one-line order leaves in place the judgment of a federal judge in Texas that struck down that rule, according to case docket 26A500.
What the Court Decided
The request, filed October 9, came from the cities of Baltimore, Columbus and New Haven and from Centro Legal de la Raza, an immigrant legal services organization. They asked to suspend the judgment that invalidated the rule while the litigation is resolved.
The Court denied it without explaining its reasons, and no dissents were recorded. It is not a decision on whether the rule is lawful or unlawful: it only leaves in effect, for now, the lower court's order while the case proceeds.
That is why the phrase “the Court backs the government” oversimplifies what happened. The court did not decide the merits; it rejected the request from those who wanted to halt the judgment.
Where the dispute comes from
The rule, titled “Efficient Case and Docket Management in Immigration Proceedings,” was issued by the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) on May 16, 2024 and appeared in the Federal Register on May 29, 2024. It defined administrative closure as the temporary suspension of a case.
According to the official text, judges had to grant the closure motion when it was filed jointly or when the other party did not oppose it. In other cases they could close it at their discretion, and detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) generally weighed against closure.
In June 2026, Texas sued over the rule. The Justice Department did not defend it: both parties requested a consent judgment on the same day as the lawsuit, and federal judge Reed O’Connor granted it. The judge vacated the rule and rejected the cities' and the organization's intervention for lack of standing. The Fifth Circuit had already denied a stay of the judgment.
What the government says
In his brief filed October 22 before the Supreme Court, the federal government argued that the cities do not claim to have immigrants in their jurisdiction whose cases are administratively closed. It added that the consent judgment does not require reopening cases that are closed today.
What does it mean to you?
- If your case was already administratively closed, the federal government says the judgment does not require reopening it, but the situation of each case file depends on its judge and its attorney.
- If you have a case in immigration court and were hoping to request a pause, for example while you pursue another application, that route now depends on what the current judgment permits and on what is resolved in the Fifth Circuit.
- This order does not decide the merits of the case; the litigation continues.
- Consult your case with an attorney or an accredited legal organization, and check its status in the official EOIR system.
Legal notice: This information is general and does not replace the advice of a licensed immigration attorney or a representative accredited by the Department of Justice.
