Those who interpret the law are also subject to it. A group of immigration judges seeking to have a district court rule on their claims of violations of their First Amendment free speech rights was reminded of this by the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) on May 26, 2026. SCOTUS’s per curiam opinion in Margolin v. National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ) reversed a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that would have allowed the NAIJ members to seek the freedom of speaking about work-related topics during public appearances without approval in a district court, as opposed to through internal administrative procedures as outlined by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978.
The original lower court ruling in 2023 dismissed the NAIJ's attempt to have their grievances heard in federal court, with a district judge noting that an administrative venue for complaints existed. The Fourth Circuit reversed the decision in June 2025, taking judicial notice that the leaders of the MSPB and the Special Counsel had been removed by the Trump Administration and questioning whether these agencies could adequately address the NAIJ's concerns without their leadership.
SCOTUS disagreed. They ruled that the Fourth Circuit had overstepped its authority by basing its decision on issues not raised by either party and was not supposed to be a “roving commission” to “sally forth each day looking for wrongs to right.”
The unsigned opinion sends the case back to the lower courts for further litigation. It also includes a concurrence from Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, which argues that the Fourth Circuit erred on the underlying legal merits of its decision, though concurring opinions do not establish binding precedent.
I Wish To Register a Complaint!
The judges who make up the NAIJ are part of the administrative court system that handles deportation hearings, green card and permanent resident status cases, and other matters within the U.S. immigration system. As federal employees of the U.S. government, they serve in the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), a division within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). They are tasked with ruling on immigrant visas, U.S. citizenship petitions, and other immigration law issues brought before the court by the DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Immigration courts have found themselves under extreme pressure in the face of the White House’s aggressive deportation agenda. The union for immigration judges stated 113 out of 700 total immigration judges had been fired as of April 2026, usually with no explanation for their terminations, although judges who have ruled against the Trump administration have been targeted.
NAIJ members often speak as guest lecturers at colleges and for community groups. As judges are federal workers, there are constraints on what they can say about work-related topics and the type of stances they can take on social media. This includes the requirement to get supervisory approval for any work-related public speeches. Feeling that this violated their right to free speech and constituted governmental overreach in violation of the Fifth Amendment, the NAIJ sought to make a change.
There are administrative path options for filing such complaints, such as the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) and the Office of Special Counsel (OSC). Both offices currently lack top leadership, as they were fired by President Trump in 2025. This provided the legal basis for the Fourth Circuit’s ruling, as the three-judge panel wasn’t confident that the offices could address the NAIJ's concerns. Their decision ordered the district court to reconsider whether the NAIJ’s argument should be resolved by judicial means rather than by offices that may lack the required personnel.
Stock Up on Red Tape
In reversing the Fourth Circuit’s decision, SCOTUS noted precedent supporting the belief that Congress intended that federal employees should attempt to resolve work-related issues through the administrative systems put in place by the Civil Service Reform Act. It took exception to the Appeals Court’s sua sponte questioning of whether either the MSPB or the OSC was functional, as it was not an argument raised by either side in the lower court, where the parties had stuck to the narrow focus of whether the NAIJ’s claims were covered by either office.
That question once again falls to the district court to determine.
