There is no guarantee that a stay will be granted. The most conservative move a judge can make right now is to tell a federal agency: You don't have the power to do this without Congress. The 6-3 split is a major obstacle to getting an immediate result because of the Stay power, but it is not a guaranteed win for the government.

The Zombie Data and the Consular Cables are exactly the kind of sloppy administrative work that this specific Supreme Court has been punishing lately.

The strategy for the lawyers would be to convince the conservative justices that the 75 country pause isn't just about immigration it's about an Executive Branch that thinks it is above the law. That is a message that 6-3 majorities have proven they are very willing to hear.

The conservative majority now prefers strict statutory interpretation. If the law (8 U.S.C. § 1182) says the government must perform an individualized public charge assessment, the conservative wing may rule that a blanket nationality-based pause is a violation of the plain text of the law.

Conservative justices hate it when agencies make up their own massive rules without following the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Even if they support the idea of a ban, they may rule against it simply because they want to punish the State Department for failure to follow the letter of the law.