Blue cities ask SCOTUS to rescue Biden-era immigration rule from backdoor deal

Filed 41m ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Rijksmuseum · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Baltimore, Columbus, New Haven and legal group Centro Legal de la Raza are asking the Supreme Court to intervene after a Texas federal judge struck down a 2024 immigration rule within hours of Texas filing suit against it. The rule had codified a longstanding practice called administrative closure, letting immigration judges pause removal proceedings for people pursuing other legal protections.

Texas sued only after the Justice Department announced it would not defend the rule, then jointly asked the same day for the court to vacate it nationwide and permanently bar the government from adopting anything similar. Chief Judge Reed O'Connor granted that request the same day, without the cities or Centro Legal de la Raza getting the hearing they'd requested to intervene.

The cities argue this is a worsening pattern of agencies using friendly lawsuits to repeal rules without the normal public notice-and-comment process required under federal law. They warn that if the tactic stands unreviewed, the requirement that agencies use the same procedures to repeal rules as to issue them becomes, in their words, a dead letter.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Suing yourself and losing on purpose is an old trick, but doing it in under twenty-four hours is a new land speed record. When the government announces ahead of time it won't defend its own rule, then shows up in court with the plaintiff to make sure it loses fast, that's not litigation, that's a handshake with extra paperwork. The whole point of a public rulemaking process is that it's supposed to be slower and more annoying than this.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Five Card Shuffle · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0