The Supreme Court issues immigration decisions almost every term, and the practical effects on visa applicants, asylum seekers, and green card holders can be immediate. A ruling handed down in Washington can change what happens at a USCIS field office in Houston, at an immigration court in Chicago, or at a port of entry in San Diego within days of publication. Understanding what the Court has decided - and what those decisions actually mean for filings, hearings, and enforcement - matters far more than the legal abstractions that dominate headline coverage.
Two decisions in particular have reshaped the immigration landscape over the past several years: the 2022 ruling in Biden v. Texas, which addressed the “Remain in Mexico” program, and the 2024 decision in Garland v. Cargill, which, while focused on firearms, demonstrated the Court’s willingness to apply strict textualist readings to federal administrative rules - a method of interpretation that now influences immigration agency guidance. Alongside those, the Court’s 2024 dismantling of Chevron deference in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo carries perhaps the most sweeping long-term consequences for how immigration regulations are written and challenged.
The End of Chevron Deference and What It Means for USCIS Decisions
For nearly 40 years, the Chevron doctrine instructed federal courts to defer to a federal agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute. USCIS and the Department of Homeland Security relied heavily on this principle to define terms like “immediate relative,” to set eligibility standards for discretionary benefits, and to issue policy memoranda that functionally changed how immigration law operated in practice.
In June 2024, the Supreme Court overruled Chevron in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 144 S. Ct. 2244. The Court held that courts must exercise independent judgment in interpreting statutory text rather than deferring to agency interpretations. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that the Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to decide legal questions themselves. For immigration practitioners, this is a structural shift. USCIS policy memoranda - such as those governing RFE (Request for Evidence) standards for O-1 petitions or L-1B specialized knowledge cases - can now be challenged more directly in federal court without the agency receiving the benefit of the doubt.
The immediate practical effect is already visible in federal district court filings. Petitioners who receive denials on H-1B or EB-2 NIW (National Interest Waiver) cases can now argue that the agency misread the statute without needing to show that the agency’s interpretation was unreasonable - a much higher bar. Attorneys are revising denial appeal strategies accordingly, and USCIS has quietly updated the framing in some of its policy manual sections to rely more on statutory text than on prior agency guidance documents.
Remain in Mexico, Title 42, and the Asylum Backlog
The Biden v. Texas decision (597 U.S. 785, 2022) held that the executive branch had the legal authority to terminate the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), commonly called “Remain in Mexico.” Under MPP, non-Mexican asylum seekers who entered the US via the southern border were returned to Mexico to await their immigration court hearings. The program had affected over 70,000 individuals who were enrolled and waiting outside the country when it was formally ended.
The Court’s decision did not resolve the underlying asylum processing crisis. When MPP was wound down following the ruling, USCIS established a process for MPP-enrolled individuals to re-enter the United States and have their cases heard. USCIS published specific guidance for this population, requiring them to contact the Department of State or CBP to request return. For those already inside the US with pending removal orders, Form I-589 (Application for Asylum and Withholding of Removal) remained the operative filing vehicle, though the immigration court backlog - exceeding 3.5 million cases as of mid-2024 according to TRAC Immigration data - has meant multi-year waits for hearing dates in most jurisdictions.
Title 42, the public health order used to rapidly expel migrants at the border, was separately terminated in May 2023 after the Supreme Court allowed lower court proceedings to run their course. When Title 42 ended, CBP shifted processing to Title 8 authority, which carries formal removal consequences, including five-year or permanent bars on reentry depending on the circumstances. Anyone removed under Title 8 and seeking to return legally must typically wait out that bar before applying for any immigration benefit, a consequence that did not apply under the swifter Title 42 expulsions.
Mandatory Detention, Bond Hearings, and the Johnson v. Arteaga-Martinez Ruling
In Johnson v. Arteaga-Martinez (596 U.S. 573, 2022), the Court addressed whether individuals subject to reinstatement of removal orders - meaning people who had previously been deported and then reentered - were entitled to bond hearings before an immigration judge after six months of detention. The Court held that the relevant statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(6), does not require the government to provide bond hearings with a presumption in favor of release.
The ruling narrowed the rights of a specific and often vulnerable category of detained noncitizens. Individuals subject to reinstated removal orders who later express fear of return are placed into “withholding-only” proceedings - a more limited form of protection review that does not lead to asylum or a path to a green card, but can result in withholding of removal or relief under the Convention Against Torture. After Arteaga-Martinez, those individuals may be detained throughout that process without an automatic right to a bond hearing where the government bears the burden of proving danger or flight risk.
Practically, this means detained individuals in withholding-only proceedings must challenge detention through habeas corpus petitions in federal district court - a more complex and slower process than a standard bond hearing before an immigration judge. Representation makes a substantial difference in these cases. Legal aid organizations including the ACLU and RAICES have expanded habeas unit capacity since the ruling, though geographic access to pro bono representation remains uneven across ICE detention facilities.
Monitoring Pending Cases: Campos-Chaves and Failure-to-Appear Orders
In Campos-Chaves v. Garland (602 U.S. 447, 2024), the Court ruled 5-4 that the government can obtain an in absentia removal order - a formal order of removal issued because someone didn’t appear for their hearing - even when the initial Notice to Appear (NTA) did not include the specific time and place of the hearing, provided that a subsequent notice with those details was sent to the address on file.
This decision directly affects hundreds of thousands of people who entered the US and received NTAs at the border without a specific hearing date listed. Many of these individuals, particularly those released during high-volume border crossings between 2021 and 2023, later received hearing notices at addresses they had vacated or never received those follow-up notices at all. Under Campos-Chaves, they are at risk of in absentia removal orders regardless of whether they actually saw the second notice.
EOIR (Executive Office for Immigration Review) data shows in absentia rates varying significantly by immigration court. For anyone with an open immigration court case, monitoring hearing notices through the EOIR automated case information hotline at 1-800-898-7180 or the online portal at acis.eoir.justice.gov is now more important than before. A filed Form EOIR-33 (Change of Address) is required within five days of an address change under 8 C.F.R. § 1003.15(d)(1). Failure to file that form can leave a respondent legally responsible for a hearing notice they never received.
Staying Current as the Court’s Docket Expands
The Supreme Court accepted several additional immigration cases for its October 2024 term, including questions about parole authority and withholding of removal standards. Each decision issued by the Court flows down into agency policy, EOIR practice, and eventually into the documents that real people file at real deadlines.
This article provides general information only. Readers with specific immigration matters should consult a licensed immigration attorney for advice tailored to their individual circumstances.
Anyone with a pending immigration case before USCIS or an immigration court should confirm their representative has reviewed any policy manual updates issued after June 2024, when Loper Bright was decided - USCIS last updated multiple policy manual chapters in the third quarter of 2024 to reflect the changed legal standard.
