Swansenreport

A federal judge in Texas quietly ended a Biden-era immigration rule Monday — not after months of litigation, but within hours of a lawsuit being filed. The speed wasn’t a coincidence. It was the point.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor entered a final consent judgment vacating the rule the same day Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the America First Legal Foundation filed suit. The Trump administration’s Justice Department agreed the regulation should be set aside — meaning there was no real adversary in court. Just a coordinated handoff dressed up as litigation. Washington Examiner

The 2024 rule let immigration judges close a deportation case after hearing arguments from both sides, particularly when someone might qualify for a legal benefit allowing them to stay. Paxton’s office called it a mechanism to “effectively grant indefinite amnesty to aliens illegally present in this country.” The Texas TribuneBloomberg Law

Critics had a point, even if they overstated it. Administrative closure has a long and tangled history in immigration courts — a docket management tool for decades, restricted under Trump’s first term, expanded again under Biden. The dispute is legitimate. How this one ended is not.

O’Connor was assigned the case because it landed in the Wichita Falls Division of the Northern District of Texas, where he is the only active district judge. Unlike larger courthouses that randomly distribute cases, lawsuits filed there go to him automatically. Filing in Wichita Falls wasn’t geography. It was strategy. O’Connor is a known quantity, and Paxton has made a habit of steering cases his direction. Washington Examiner

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council called it “madness” — deliberate collusion between the state, a federal judge, and the DOJ to erase regulations without input from affected parties. He said parties who disagree may now seek to intervene to overturn the ruling. The Texas Tribune

This isn’t new behavior. Last year, DOJ sued Texas over a law allowing undocumented students to qualify for in-state tuition. Texas agreed with the federal government, asked O’Connor to strike the law down, and he did — within hours. Experts called it unusual then. It’s a template now. KTSA

Wisconsin isn’t a bystander here. Wisconsin Watch launched an immigration court data tracker in April, covering millions of immigrants placed in deportation proceedings across the state. The outlet has spent the past year documenting the chaotic shifts in immigration policy — including the case of a Sheboygan Falls mother held in an Ohio ICE facility for months while her green card application waited on a biometric check. Administrative closure was sometimes the only thing keeping cases like hers from racing to a final removal order while other agencies caught up. Wisconsin WatchUrban Milwaukee

That tool is gone now. Not through Congress. Not through years of appellate review. Through a same-day arrangement between a state AG, a White House-aligned legal group, and the one judge assigned to a courthouse in Wichita Falls, Texas.

The national immigration court backlog sits at roughly 3.2 million pending cases. Judges lean on procedural tools — closures, continuances, docketing discretion — to manage a calendar that would otherwise collapse. Removing one of those tools doesn’t clear the backlog. It just takes away a pressure valve. Minnlawyer

Whether that’s the goal is worth asking out loud.

Sources: Texas Tribune (Uriel J. García and Ayden Runnels, June 22, 2026); Washington Examiner (Kaelan Deese, June 22, 2026); Bloomberg Law (June 22, 2026); Wisconsin Watch immigration court data tracker (April 22, 2026); Wisconsin Watch/Urban Milwaukee immigration reporting (December 2025).