By John Kruzel
WASHINGTON, May 26 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court sided on Tuesday with President Donald Trump's administration in a dispute involving a free-speech challenge by federal immigration judges to a U.S. government policy restricting what they can publicly say about immigration.
The justices, in an unsigned ruling, reversed a lower court's decision and returned the case to that court for further proceedings. The ruling did not address the legal merits of the speech restraint, which was
enacted during Trump's first term as president.
Trump's administration had appealed to the justices after a lower court ordered findings on whether his firings of the heads of agencies overseeing federal worker complaints had stripped these agencies of the independence from White House control that Congress had intended. Such a finding, the lower court said, might entitle the immigration judges to their day in court.
A group representing the immigration judges had also appealed the lower court's determination that the challenge to the speech restraint belongs before the agencies - so long as they are functional - instead of in court. That appeal was denied on Tuesday.
The policy requires immigration judges to get prior approval before any "official" speech. Such speaking engagements are those in which a judge "is invited to participate in an event because of their official position, is expected to discuss agency policies, programs or a subject matter that directly relates to their official duties or otherwise appear on behalf of the agency," according to court records.
The Executive Office for Immigration Review, the U.S. agency that employs some 750 immigration judges and oversees the nation's immigration courts, enacted the policy during Trump's first term. The policy was reviewed but ultimately left in place by Democratic President Joe Biden's administration and maintained by Trump's current administration.
The National Association of Immigration Judges, a group representing the judges, filed a lawsuit in 2020 to block the policy, arguing that it violated the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protections against government abridgment of free speech.
A Virginia-based federal judge in 2023 dismissed the court challenge, saying a 1978 U.S. law called the Civil Service Reform Act dictated that its challenge should be brought before independent U.S. agencies that typically handle federal worker complaints, rather than in court. Under that law, certain federal worker complaints are reviewed by the Office of Special Counsel, which decides whether to bring the case to the Merit Systems Protection Board to adjudicate the claim.
But the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in June 2025 said that Trump's firing of the heads of these agencies had raised serious questions about whether the immigration judges could get a fair hearing before the agencies. It ordered the judge to conduct fact-finding on that question, prompting the Trump administration's appeal to the Supreme Court.
The justices on Tuesday faulted the 4th Circuit for basing its ruling on an argument that had not been raised by a party to the case.
Trump has removed numerous independent agency heads despite laws shielding these officials from being fired at will.
The Supreme Court in a separate case is expected to resolve by the end of June the Trump administration's argument that such removal protections unconstitutionally constrain presidential power.
The association representing immigration judges argued in its appeal that challenges to speech restraints like the one at issue in this case should be allowed to be brought in court, regardless of whether federal agencies are hobbled or not.
The Supreme Court has backed Trump in several immigration-related rulings issued on an emergency basis since his return to the presidency, including allowing him to deport migrants to countries other than their own and to revoke temporary legal status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants.
The court also is expected to rule by the end of June on the legality of Trump's directive to restrict birthright citizenship in the United States and the administration's bid to revoke temporary legal protections for more than 350,000 Haitians and about 6,100 Syrians living in the United States.
(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)
