WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, dismissed Genalo v. G.M., the Trump administration’s lead challenge to bond hearings for prolonged mandatory immigration detention, after New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s pardon wiped out the conviction that kept the case alive.

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer and ACLU National Legal Director Cecillia Wang, counsel for respondent Keisy Guerrero Mariano (identified in court papers as Keisy G.M.), filed a joint stipulation asking the justices to drop the case as moot. Hours later the Court dismissed it, canceling oral argument that had been set for Tuesday, Oct. 13, SCOTUSblog reported.

Hochul, a Democrat, issued a full and unconditional pardon on Aug. 28 for Mariano’s New York second-degree assault conviction — the sole aggravated-felony ground DHS used to treat him as deportable and subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. §1226(c). With that conviction erased, federal law no longer treats him as deportable on that basis, so the live controversy the administration wanted decided disappeared, according to filings summarized by The Epoch Times and the ACLU.

Mariano, a Dominican citizen and lawful permanent resident since 2011, spent about 21 months in ICE custody without a bond hearing after DHS arrested him in the Bronx. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had held that once §1226(c) detention becomes unreasonably prolonged, due process requires a bond hearing at which the government must prove flight risk or danger. The government asked the justices to reverse that rule; after another respondent left the country, the Court’s grant focused on Mariano’s claim.

Sauer told the Court the government agrees the habeas case is now moot but said the underlying questions remain and that DOJ will look for new vehicles so the justices can still resolve them in October Term 2026, SCOTUSblog reported. The dismissal leaves the Second Circuit’s bond-hearing rule in place for New York, Connecticut, and Vermont until another case reaches the Court.

A governor’s pardon just took a nationally consequential detention fight off the docket a month before argument — a reminder that immigration detention power still runs through criminal convictions states can erase, and that the administration’s bid to lock in no-bond detention will have to find another plaintiff.

Sources