The United States Supreme Court has ruled that migrants waiting on the Mexico side of the U.S.-Mexico border are not legally entitled to apply for asylum until they physically enter the United States.
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In a 6-3 decision delivered on Thursday, the court cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s administration to resume a border policy allowing federal agents to turn back asylum seekers before they enter the country.
The case centred on the interpretation of U.S. immigration laws which provide that any noncitizen who “arrives in” the United States must be allowed to apply for asylum.
Writing for the conservative majority, Justice Samuel Alito held that a person cannot be said to have arrived in a country before entering it.
“In ordinary speech, no one would say that a person ‘arrives in’ a place — for example, a house, a city, or a country — before the person enters that place,” Alito wrote.
The ruling revives the legal basis for a policy commonly known as “metering,” under which U.S. border officials limit or block asylum seekers from presenting themselves at ports of entry for processing.
The policy expanded during Trump’s first administration and was criticised by immigration advocates, who said it forced many migrants to remain in unsafe conditions in makeshift camps on the Mexican side of the border.
The plaintiffs in the case argued that turning back asylum seekers before processing them increased desperation and pushed some migrants to attempt illegal and dangerous crossings through the Rio Grande or the Sonoran Desert.
In a strongly worded dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by the court’s other liberal justices, warned that the decision would have grave consequences.
“The consequences of today’s decision are predictable. More people will die,” she wrote.
Sotomayor added that more migrants may attempt illegal crossings, with some likely to succeed and others facing life-threatening dangers.
She also delivered her dissent from the bench, a rare step usually taken when a justice strongly disagrees with the majority decision.
In an unusual development, Justice Alito also responded from the bench, saying he was unaware Sotomayor planned to deliver a bench dissent and would have included more in his own oral summary had he known.
The decision followed earlier lower court rulings against the policy. In 2021, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Bashant of the Federal Court in California ruled in favour of 13 asylum seekers who challenged the legality of the policy.
The judge held that U.S. officers were required to process asylum seekers attempting to enter the country, not only those already physically within U.S. territory.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld that ruling, while the policy was later rescinded under President Joe Biden.
However, the Trump administration argued before the Supreme Court that the policy remained a critical tool for managing migrant surges at the southern border and could be revived when border conditions required it.
The Supreme Court’s ruling now gives the administration legal authority to resume the practice of turning back asylum seekers before they cross into the United States.
The decision also came shortly before another high court ruling that could allow the U.S. government to deport hundreds of thousands of people beginning this year, in a separate case involving Trump administration efforts to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitian and Syrian immigrants.
Temporary Protected Status allows nationals of countries affected by war, natural disasters and other emergencies to live and work in the United States for a limited period.
The asylum ruling is expected to have major implications for migrants fleeing persecution on grounds such as political opinion, race, religion and other protected categories under U.S. law.
Trump has also sought to restrict asylum through other immigration measures, including a proclamation declaring an “invasion” at the southern border and barring entry to asylum seekers on public safety, health and economic grounds.
But in April, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that declaration unlawful, effectively clearing the way for asylum seekers to access the U.S. border.
The Trump administration has indicated it will appeal that ruling, potentially setting up another Supreme Court battle over the scope of presidential power and asylum rights at the southern border.
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