Supreme Court backs Trump in immigration judges case

The Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration on Tuesday in a dispute over speech restrictions on immigration judges, throwing out a lower-court ruling that had let the challenge proceed and sending the case back for further review.

In an unsigned order, the justices did not rule on whether the policy itself violates the First Amendment. They said the National Association of Immigration Judges must first press its case through the federal employee review system, agreeing with the administration that the courts had been asked to intervene too soon.

The court said federal judges are not “roving commissions” free to “sally forth each day looking for wrongs to right.”

A 4th Circuit panel had said the judges could go directly to federal court because the policy worked as a prior restraint on speech. SCOTUSblog said the full Richmond-based appeals court later voted 9-6 against rehearing the case.

The speech limits were first imposed in 2017 during Trump’s first term. The judges’ group sued in 2020, and the Executive Office for Immigration Review employs about 750 immigration judges, according to Reuters’ reporting on the case.

Because immigration judges work inside the Justice Department rather than the independent federal judiciary, the dispute has become a test of how far a president can control the speech of executive-branch adjudicators. Alex Abdo of the Knight First Amendment Institute, which represents the judges’ group, said forcing employees through administrative channels before they can challenge prior restraints allows “unconstitutional censorship to persist.”

The case now returns to lower courts, with the broader constitutional fight still unresolved.