The Supreme Court handed the Trump administration a clean win Tuesday, reversing a lower court ruling that had opened the door for federal immigration judges to challenge White House restrictions on their public advocacy.
The justices, in an unsigned ruling, reversed a Fourth Circuit decision and sent the case back to that court for further proceedings. The case, Margolin v. NAIJ, centers on the National Association of Immigration Judges’ effort to fight a government policy limiting what its members can say in public forums and speaking engagements.
The NAIJ filed its original lawsuit in 2020, arguing that restrictions on judges’ public statements violated their First and Fifth Amendment rights. A federal district court ruled the challenge had to go through the administrative process established by the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, which routes most federal employee work-related grievances to the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Office of Special Counsel rather than directly to federal courts.
The Fourth Circuit vacated that dismissal on procedural grounds the parties themselves had not raised. The Supreme Court reversed that move Tuesday, finding it improper.
The justices did not reach the underlying constitutional questions. The ruling is a procedural victory for the administration, forcing the case back through the federal bureaucratic review process Congress set up for federal worker disputes.
The NAIJ said it would continue the fight. “The case has been remanded to the Fourth Circuit, and NAIJ will continue fighting to protect the free speech rights of immigration judges,” the group said in a statement.
Critics of the restrictions have argued that barring immigration judges from speaking publicly about immigration policy effectively silences expert voices at a moment when the administration is pushing aggressive deportation and enforcement policies. The Trump administration has argued the restrictions are lawful and that immigration judges, as executive branch employees, are subject to the same limitations as other federal workers.
Immigration courts have been under intense scrutiny since Trump took office in January 2025. The administration has worked to accelerate deportation proceedings and has restructured the immigration court system, including the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the judges.
