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The J.O.P. asylum settlement for people first processed as unaccompanied children now ends Nov. 27, 2026, but a Maryland federal judge will keep jurisdiction until May 27, 2027 to remedy class members DHS wrongly deported.
U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher of the District of Maryland ruled on Nov. 3, 2026, that the court will retain jurisdiction for six more months to enforce the J.O.P. v. DHS settlement on behalf of class members the government removed in violation of the agreement. In a 10-page memorandum opinion (ECF No. 767) and a one-page order (ECF No. 768), she found that at least 84 confirmed class members had been deported without a decision on their asylum claims. A week earlier, on Oct. 29, she had pushed the settlement’s general termination date back nine days, from Nov. 18 to Nov. 27, 2026 (ECF No. 765). Law360 first reported the Nov. 3 ruling.
The ruling matters to anyone representing a young asylum seeker who was once classified as an unaccompanied child. The settlement, approved in November 2024, keeps USCIS asylum offices in charge of those applications and bars ICE from executing removal orders while they are pending. It is about to expire. The Nov. 3 order means that people deported in breach of it before the deadline still have a court that can order a remedy after it ends.
What the court ordered
Class counsel moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) to extend the settlement (ECF No. 701), asking for an end date of Feb. 24, 2028. Judge Gallagher granted the motion in part. Her order adds the same clause to the settlement’s termination and enforcement provisions, Sections IV.K and V.A: the court keeps jurisdiction until May 27, 2027 to enforce all terms for class members “wrongly removed by Defendants in violation of Section III.I on or before November 27, 2026.” The opinion says that period can be extended for good cause.
The extension is narrow. It applies only to class members removed in breach of the settlement’s no-removal provision. It does not extend the agreement as a whole past Nov. 27. The order itself places no new duties on DHS, USCIS or ICE: no return, notice or reporting requirements. Remedies are to be worked out case by case.
The court’s reasoning
The court applied Rule 60(b)(5), which allows relief from a judgment when applying it prospectively is no longer equitable. Under Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail (1992) and the Fourth Circuit’s Thompson decision (2005), the party asking for the change must show a significant change in circumstances, and the change must be suitably tailored. Judge Gallagher pointed to her July 29, 2026 opinion, which had already treated the government’s noncompliance as an unanticipated circumstance. She found the wrongful removal of at least 84 confirmed class members, and possibly more, amply sufficient to justify modification. She also found no intentional disregard of the agreement. Elsewhere the opinion says 163 people, at least 84 of them confirmed class members, had been removed without a merits decision on their asylum claims. For those figures it cites ECF No. 766, apparently the record of the Oct. 29 hearing.
The coming termination date was itself part of the problem. Without the extension, the opinion says, “This Court will soon lose jurisdiction to remedy those wronged.”
The government made four arguments: that 8 U.S.C. 1252(f)(1) barred the modification; that a handful of possible mistakes could not justify it; that a roughly 450-day extension was not tailored; and that facilitating return was the only proper remedy, which the court could already order under its April 2025 ruling. The court rejected the jurisdictional argument. It held that a six-month extension of jurisdiction has no more than a collateral effect on the removal provisions Section 1252(f)(1) protects, and that it restrains no removal operations itself. The court relied on appellate decisions treating asylum-process relief as outside that bar, including the Ninth Circuit’s Al Otro Lado decision.
The court did not adopt either side’s remedy. It rejected class counsel’s uniform extension to 2028 as not suitably tailored, because a person deported last month is in a different position from someone deported in early 2025. It also declined to limit relief to facilitated return. It noted that some removed class members will want to come back and others will not, and that the settlement offered benefits beyond protection from removal. Six months, the opinion says, gives time for good-faith efforts to find the people affected and to negotiate remedial terms.
How it fits the case so far
This is the latest in a series of enforcement rulings. In September, Judge Gallagher held DHS in contempt for deporting a class member, E.L.A., to El Salvador a second time, as Immigration Analytics reported in October. On Oct. 8, in a separate ruling (ECF Nos. 731 and 742), she found that DHS had breached Section III.H of the settlement. DHS had opposed administrative closure for class members, moved to recalendar closed cases, and opposed termination on grounds the agreement does not allow, including the position that USCIS lacks initial jurisdiction. She ordered DHS to stop. She declined to require DHS to present individual facts to the immigration judge before opposing termination. In May, she had already moved the termination date to Nov. 18. The case runs alongside a newer Maryland suit over short-notice asylum interviews for unaccompanied children, covered here on Oct. 16.
Practical takeaways
- Removed clients: if a client who may be a J.O.P. class member was deported before a USCIS merits decision, contact class counsel now. The court’s extended jurisdiction covers removals on or before Nov. 27, 2026, and it lasts only until May 27, 2027 unless extended.
- Clients still in the U.S.: the Nov. 3 ruling does not say what happens after Nov. 27 to class members who have not been removed and whose USCIS applications are still pending. Practitioners should watch for guidance from class counsel and any further orders, and should document class membership and pending filings now.
- Immigration court practice: until the termination date, the Oct. 8 order still bars DHS from moving to recalendar class members’ closed cases. It also requires DHS to join or not oppose closure or termination motions that await USCIS jurisdiction, with the exceptions the order allows.
Dates and decisions to watch
- Nov. 27, 2026: the settlement’s general termination date (ECF No. 765).
- May 27, 2027: end of the court’s retained jurisdiction over wrongly removed class members, extendable for good cause (ECF No. 768).
- Whether the government appeals the Rule 60(b) modification to the Fourth Circuit, and whether the parties agree on remedial terms for removed class members.
This article is for general information and is not legal advice.
Sources
- Memorandum Opinion, J.O.P. v. DHS, No. 8:19-cv-01944-SAG, ECF No. 767 (D. Md. Nov. 3, 2026), via National Immigration Project
- Order, J.O.P. v. DHS, ECF No. 768 (D. Md. Nov. 3, 2026), via National Immigration Project
- Order extending termination date to Nov. 27, 2026, ECF No. 765 (D. Md. Oct. 29, 2026), via National Immigration Project
- Memorandum Opinion on Motion to Enforce Section III.H, ECF No. 742 and Order, ECF No. 731 (D. Md. Oct. 8, 2026)
- “Md. Judge Extends Asylum Deal Over 84 Wrongful Removals,” Law360 (Nov. 4, 2026)
- J.O.P. v. DHS case page, National Immigration Project (updated Oct.–Nov. 2026)
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