New York Gov. Kathy Hochul pardoned a convicted felon just as a landmark immigration detention case reached the Supreme Court, a move that rendered the case moot and left the Trump administration searching for a new path to challenge a federal appeals court ruling.
The Supreme Court will no longer hear oral argument in Genalo v. Black, a case that would have tested whether the government can hold noncitizens with criminal records in prolonged detention without granting them a bond hearing. Solicitor General John Sauer agreed Friday that the case is moot after Hochul issued a pardon in late August to Keisy Guerrero Mariano, a lawfully present Dominican citizen and one of two plaintiffs in the case. Fox News Digital reported that Hochul's office did not respond to a request for comment on the pardon.
The timing alone tells the story. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case on June 15. Hochul issued the pardon just as the administration's brief was due, not months before, not after the case was decided, but at the precise moment designed to pull the rug out from under the proceedings.
Hochul, a Democrat who has been staunchly opposed to President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement efforts, has offered no public explanation for why she chose to pardon Mariano. The pardon wiped out the criminal conviction that made him deportable, which eliminated the legal dispute at the heart of the case and left the Supreme Court with nothing to decide.
Mariano, identified as "Keisy GM" in court documents, pleaded guilty to second-degree assault in 2015. ICE arrested him in 2020 based on that conviction, and he spent nearly two years in federal immigration detention. In November 2021, Judge John P. Cronan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York denied Mariano's request for release through a habeas corpus petition.
Mariano was eventually released in 2022, not because a court found his detention unlawful, but because a nationwide injunction forced the release of detainees over COVID-19 health risks.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals then overruled Judge Cronan's decision in May 2024, issuing a ruling that went much further than the original case. The appeals court held that the government must grant noncitizens a bond hearing once their detention becomes "unreasonably long," and that failure to do so violates the Fifth Amendment's due process protections. That ruling applied broadly, not just to Mariano, but to any noncitizen held under the federal mandatory detention statute.
The Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that noncitizens, including green card holders, do not have a legal right to a bond hearing during prolonged detention if they have committed crimes that are grounds for mandatory deportation. National Review reported that the government's position drew on an Eighth Circuit ruling holding that "due process imposes no time limit on detention pending deportation."
The case had the potential to resolve a deep split among the federal appeals courts over how long the government can detain illegal immigrants and criminal aliens awaiting removal. The Supreme Court has issued a series of consequential rulings in recent terms, and Genalo v. Black was shaping up to be one of the most significant immigration cases on the docket.
Hochul's pardon did not just help Mariano avoid deportation. It destroyed the legal vehicle the Trump administration needed to get the issue before the nation's highest court.
The case's other plaintiff, Carol Williams Black, a Jamaican national, was already out of the picture. Black was convicted in New York in 2000 of sexually abusing a minor under the age of 11. After being detained by ICE, Black left the United States and filed a court declaration stating he would not return. The Supreme Court ruled Black's portion of the case moot on those grounds.
With Mariano pardoned and Black gone, the case collapsed entirely. No plaintiff, no dispute, no ruling.
Iowa Solicitor General Eric Wessan, posting on X, did not hold back about what Hochul had done. He called the pardon a deliberate effort to shield a convicted felon and block the Supreme Court from weighing in on a major legal question.
"Pretty wild to fully pardon an aggravated felon to (1) stop the felon from getting deported and (2) stop the Supreme Court from ruling on an issue. (Especially as this litigation has been going on for years)"
Wessan went further, questioning how far governors opposed to immigration enforcement would go to prevent consequences for criminal noncitizens.
"I wonder how many non-American felons Governors like Hochul will choose to fully pardon and free to avoid them facing consequences for their actions"
The Supreme Court's recent reluctance to intervene in certain state-level disputes makes the loss of this case particularly costly for the administration. Genalo v. Black was a clean vehicle to challenge a sweeping appeals court ruling, and now it is gone.
Sauer did not concede the underlying legal battle. While agreeing that the case is now moot, he stated that the Trump administration will seek an "alternative vehicle" to challenge the Second Circuit's 2024 ruling. The administration intends to bring the issue before the Supreme Court during its 2026, 27 term.
That means the Second Circuit's ruling, requiring bond hearings for noncitizens in prolonged detention, stands for now. Federal immigration authorities in the Second Circuit's jurisdiction, which covers New York, Connecticut, and Vermont, remain bound by it. The government must provide individualized bond hearings when detention becomes "unreasonably long," and bear the burden of justifying continued detention by clear and convincing evidence.
Finding a replacement case will take time. The administration needs a new plaintiff with an active dispute, a clean procedural record, and facts that present the legal question squarely. That process could take months, and even after a new case reaches the Supreme Court, a decision would not come until 2027 at the earliest.
In the meantime, the Court has shown willingness to clear a path for executive action in other areas. Whether it gets the chance to do so on immigrant detention now depends on whether the administration can assemble a new case before another governor finds another pardon to sign.
Governors have broad pardon power, and Hochul was within her legal authority to act. But the circumstances strip any pretense of mercy from the decision. Mariano was not an innocent man wrongly convicted. He pleaded guilty to second-degree assault. ICE detained him lawfully based on that conviction. A federal judge denied his release. He was freed only because of a pandemic-era court order, not because any court found his detention improper.
Hochul did not pardon Mariano because the system failed him. She pardoned him because the system was about to work, and the result would have strengthened the federal government's hand in enforcing immigration law. The pardon arrived at the exact moment it could inflict maximum damage on the Supreme Court proceedings, timed to the filing deadline for the administration's brief.
The Supreme Court has backed the administration in other high-profile disputes this term, but it cannot rule on a case that no longer exists. Hochul ensured this one would not survive long enough to reach oral argument.
Fox News Digital reached out to Hochul's office for comment on the pardon. The governor's office did not respond.
When a governor uses the pardon power not to correct an injustice but to sabotage a Supreme Court case, the question is no longer about one convicted felon's deportation, it is about whether state officials can veto federal immigration enforcement one pardon at a time.
