On May 26, 2026, the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration in a dispute over restrictions on immigration judges' speech, but on procedural grounds rather than the merits. The unsigned ruling reversed a Fourth Circuit decision that had let a group of immigration judges pursue their First Amendment challenge in federal court, and sent the case back for reconsideration. The justices faulted the appeals court for deciding the case on a theory neither side had raised, without giving the parties a chance to respond.
The underlying policy, a federal rule revised in 2021, requires immigration judges to get prior approval before any “official” speech or writing that touches on immigration law, agency programs, or their work duties. A group of judges sued in 2020, arguing it violates their free-speech rights. The Supreme Court did not decide whether the restriction is constitutional; it left the litigation to continue in the lower courts. Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, in a concurrence, said they would have gone further and found the Fourth Circuit wrong on the merits as well.
The ruling matters because of where it sends the judges. It routes their dispute back toward the federal employee-complaint system at a moment when that system's independence is in question, after Trump removed top officials at the Merit Systems Protection Board, the body meant to hear such claims.