The Supreme Court on Tuesday shut down an attempt by left-wing politicians to revive a Biden-era open-borders policy. The cities of Baltimore, Columbus, and New Haven asked the Court to end an agreement with Texas that had terminated administrative closure, a practice that lets immigration judges temporarily pause or set aside deportation proceedings instead of ruling on them.
The Court dismissed the cities’ request with no noted dissents. Administrative closure was widely used during the Biden administration, giving immigration judges the authority to pause deportation cases. It was originally intended to help the immigration courts clear their backlog, but during that period the tool was completely abused.
Left wing ideologues who wormed their way into immigration judge positions utilized the policy not to increase efficiency, but to indirectly grant amnesty to illegal aliens. Once arrested by ICE, if an illegal alien was able to come before a left-wing judge, the judge would often invoke administrative closure to allow the alien time to pursue legal relief.
This would allow them to either skip court altogether or use immigration lawyers to find a loophole to avoid or forestall deportation. Democrat-run cities asked the Supreme Court to reinstate this policy not because the system needed it, but because open borders judges desire to subvert US immigration law and allow de facto amnesty be granted to illegal aliens with no legal basis to remain in the United States.
The Supreme Court was right to slap down this political scheme. The Trump administration successfully closed the border, vastly reducing the number of illegal crossings and relieving immigration courts. There is no reason to bring back administrative closure, unless the goal is to allow illegal aliens to stay in the US.
While this decision is a clear victory, conservatives cannot let their guard down. The Left will keep trying to achieve their open borders agenda using both the administrative closure system and other methods.