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In late March, I sat in the gallery of the Supreme Court for the first time in my life. Throughout my 30 years of grassroots anti-poverty work, I\u2019ve joined countless protests and vigils outside the Court. In 2018, I was even arrested and held in detention for praying on its palatial steps. Now, I was seated with a clear view of the nine justices of the nation\u2019s highest court. I was there as a guest of immigrant rights lawyers, as their team made oral arguments in\u00a0Noem v. Al Otro Lado, the most significant case on the right to asylum in decades.<\/p>\n
In February, the\u00a0Kairos Center<\/a>\u00a0(the organization I direct) authored an interfaith amicus\u00a0brief<\/a>\u00a0on that very case, alongside 31 denominations and organizations representing faith traditions practiced by billions worldwide. Those groups, including the Alliance of Baptists, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Hindus for Human Rights, the Latino Christian National Network, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Reconstructing Judaism, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Unitarian Universalist Association, the General Synod of the United Church of Christ, and the General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church, joined together to declare that our societal obligation to provide for persecuted outsiders is a universally shared moral principle.<\/p>\n Although the case has largely flown under the public radar, there is indeed a lot at stake. Filed on behalf of asylum seekers,\u00a0Noem v. Al Otro Lado\u00a0focuses on the legality of a 2018 Trump border policy blocking access to the U.S. asylum process for people arriving at the border with Mexico. Immigrant rights advocates argue that such a\u00a0turnback policy<\/a>, under which immigration officers physically stop people seeking safety at official border crossings from setting foot on U.S. soil, flouts decades of settled federal immigration law and our society\u2019s most deeply held legal and moral values.<\/p>\n For more than a century, the government has been required to undertake a legal process of inspection when people seek asylum at official ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border (as they must inspect all noncitizens seeking admission to the United States). That requirement is supposed to ensure that this country doesn\u2019t send vulnerable people back into danger without first allowing them to seek protection. A wide range of immigration lawyers and legal experts argue that the first Trump administration\u2019s turnback policy, euphemistically called \u201cmetering,\u201d directly undermined the government\u2019s responsibility to process such asylum claims. As a result, vulnerable children, families, and adults were regularly forced to remain indefinitely stranded in perilous conditions in Mexico.<\/p>\n Although the turnback policy has not been in effect since 2021, when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declared it unlawful, the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to review the case. Should the government win (which is all too possible given the hyperpartisan nature of the current Court), the consequences are sure to be grave and far-reaching. The Department of Homeland Security would have the legal backing to turn away untold thousands of desperate people at the border, potentially clearing the way for even more expansive\u00a0border closures<\/a>, while further intensifying the\u00a0jingoistic nationalism<\/a>\u00a0that defines the Trump administration. Alongside other landmark cases this term, like\u00a0Trump v. Barboza, in which the government seeks to undo the constitutional right to birthright citizenship, the results of\u00a0Noem v. Al Otro Lado\u00a0are likely to reveal the lengths to which the Supreme Court is willing to backstop the president\u2019s assault on democracy, including accelerated attacks on the rights of vulnerable populations.<\/p>\n The day I was there, the existential stakes of that case and the larger societal crisis in which it was unfolding did not seem to concern the court\u2019s conservative justices. I had the words of George Washington (written<\/a>\u00a0in 1788 to the radical Dutch republican Francis Van der Kemp) in my mind as I sat in the gallery: \u201cI had always hoped that this land might become a safe & agreeable\u00a0asylum\u00a0to the virtuous & persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.\u201d<\/p>\n Unfortunately, having heard the statements and reactions of some of the judges, I fear that the majority of the Supreme Court may no longer agree with that foundational vision for this country.<\/p>\n Courtroom Friezes and Draconian Law<\/p>\n The first thing that struck me on entering the Supreme Court gallery were the\u00a0stone friezes<\/a>\u00a0on the walls of the room. Designed by Adolf Weinman more than a century ago, those large marble reliefs, featuring what he called the \u201cgreat lawgivers of history,\u201d tower over the space. Among them are prominent religious figures like Moses (holding a scroll of the Ten Commandments), King Solomon, Confucius, and a rendition of the Prophet Muhammad (that is entirely unrecognizable). The friezes also include Roman Emperor Octavian (otherwise known as Caesar Augustus, Jesus\u2019s great nemesis), French King Louis IX (leader of the seventh and eighth crusades), and Draco (a Greek jurist whose legacy lurks in the word \u201cdraconian\u201d because of the extreme measures he took to punish minor offenses).<\/p>\n As I stared at those figures, I reflected on the message they convey about the complex civilizational lineages from which the Supreme Court and our legal system derive their authority. In our amicus brief, we reflected on those varied lineages as they pertain to the right to seek asylum:<\/p>\n \u201cOur asylum laws are the modern embodiment of a deeply rooted religious, cultural, and historical heritage that has consistently affirmed society\u2019s obligation to provide refuge for those seeking safety. Asylum reaches back to some of the earliest moments of recorded human history. It was practiced throughout the ancient civilizations that forged the foundation of Western society. This tradition can also be found in the form of church sanctuary asylum, a mainstay of European culture for over a millennium.<\/p>\n \u201cOur very nation began as a haven for persecuted political and religious minorities. This tradition is present throughout our history, from the practices of Native Americans to the Underground Railroad to modern times. Congress adopted our current asylum laws in significant part due to the efforts of faith-based groups seeking to uphold deeply held societal, moral, and cultural principles.\u201d<\/p>\n Buy the Book<\/a><\/p>\n Despite such deeply held and ancient principles, I couldn\u2019t shake a sense of impending doom as I scanned the faces on the friezes and those of the justices. I thought of the awesome and awful power of Rome, depicted throughout the gallery, and its draconian reign of \u201cpeace\u201d (or what Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recently termed \u201cdelivering peace through strength<\/a>\u201d). And I recalled the worsening anti-democratic and\u00a0pro-oligarchic<\/a>\u00a0turn our own Supreme Court has taken in the Trump era.<\/p>\n Just consider the rulings from the past few years: the Court has essentially given\u00a0<\/a>immunity<\/a>\u00a0to the executive branch (although the Court is supposed to be a critical part of a federal system of checks and balances), criminalized\u00a0<\/a>homelessness<\/a>\u00a0(although the U.S. claims to be a nation of opportunity and prosperity for all), and degraded\u00a0<\/a>voting rights<\/a>\u00a0(cutting off the legs of our democracy).<\/p>\n Before oral arguments began in\u00a0Noem v. Al Otro Lado, I was under no illusion that the Supreme Court delivers equality, freedom, and justice for all. And yet, on an issue as basic and legally sound as the right to seek asylum, I was still shocked by the flippancy of the court\u2019s conservative judges. For hours, they rocked in their chairs, physically broadcasting their disinterest in the case. Rather than take seriously more than 100 years of legal precedent and hundreds more of long-established societal practice, they seemed to enjoy getting into hyper-specific and cherrypicked semantic and rhetorical arguments with Kelsi Brown Cochran, our lawyer.<\/p>\n In preparation for that day, I had brushed up on the history of U.S. asylum law. An important story in that history is the\u00a0S.S. St. Louis<\/a>, a ship that in 1939 was carrying 930 refugees from Hamburg, Germany, fleeing the Nazi regime, who were first denied entry to Cuba and then to the United States, only to be returned to Europe, where many of them were taken to the Nazi death camps.<\/p>\n Reflecting on that story at a pre-hearing press conference, Nicole Elizabeth Ramos, border rights project director at Al Otro Lado, a plaintiff in the case, offered this explanation:<\/p>\n \u201cThe right to seek asylum is not a policy preference or a loophole \u2014 it is a legal right and a moral commitment forged in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Seeking asylum is not like taking a number at a deli counter and waiting for your turn. You cannot ask someone fleeing rape, torture, or death threats to wait in danger indefinitely because a government has decided their lives are inconvenient. We filed this case because the United States has an obligation to follow its own laws \u2014 laws duly enacted by Congress. The question before the Court is whether those laws can be set aside by executive action, or whether they remain binding at the border, as written.\u201d<\/p>\n In their apparent willingness to flout precedent and condemn modern-day asylees to harm or even death, the conservative justices unselfconsciously aligned themselves with American nativism and European fascism of the 1930s. If, in their final decision, they uphold Trump\u2019s turnback policy, they will be affirming that, were the\u00a0S.S. St Louis\u00a0to sail again today, the ship would still be denied entry and its passengers asylum.<\/p>\n The Moral Crisis Is Not \u201cBorder Surges\u201d But the Closing of the Border<\/p>\n The morning of those oral arguments, the Kairos Center and other faith organizations held an interfaith prayer vigil on the steps of the Supreme Court to call attention to the case. Reverend Michael Neuroth, director of the United Church of Christ\u2019s Washington D.C. office, put the matter vividly: \u201cWelcoming and protecting the stranger is not a minor tenet of our faith but is a foundational moral obligation in each of our traditions. Dismantling the right to asylum is morally wrong, strategically short-sighted, and increases insecurity here in our nation. We must be a nation of compassion, a place of refuge to those in need.\u201d<\/p>\n The vigil was organized in the heart of the \u201choly season\u201d amid Ramadan, Passover, and Easter. As billions of people globally engage in rituals of remembrance, repentance, deliverance, and liberation, our prayers and petitions focused not only on the legal precedent for the right to seek asylum, but on the moral imperative to do so. For Christians, protecting and welcoming the immigrant is one of Jesus\u2019s first and most powerful teachings. It\u2019s also among the highest moral commands of the Torah. As the prophet Jeremiah reminds us, \u201cDo no wrong to the foreigner and do not shed innocent blood.\u201d Asylum and societal hospitality are well-recognized rights within Islamic law and theology, a fundamental Hindu and Buddhist tenet, and part of Native American spiritual teachings.<\/p>\n In our interfaith amicus brief, we wrote: \u201cAs the many faiths practiced by this country\u2019s citizens teach, a society that does not protect the least among us is a failed society.\u201d As faith leaders, we had in mind not only the right to seek asylum, but the many ways the Trump administration has deepened and intensified a moral crisis at the heart of our society. We were thinking about the ongoing attacks on immigrant communities \u2014 from ICE-led campaigns of terror to family and\u00a0child detention<\/a>\u00a0in places like Dilley, Texas. There was also the stripping of life-saving healthcare and food support from millions of Americans through cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); the criminalization and forced deprivation of LGBTQ+ people; and the prosecution of anillegal war<\/a>\u00a0that threatens the lives of so many in Iran and the broader region, as well as the livelihoods of billions of us across this globe.<\/p>\n In\u00a0Noem v. Al Otro Lado, the Trump administration is attempting to mask its cruelty and despotism through banal legal arguments. By focusing semantically on when protections start for asylum seekers and debating the meaning of the term \u201carrives in\u201d (as in this country, of course), its lawyers were ignoring the illegality and immorality of border agents blocking asylum seekers from crossing the U.S.-Mexican border and the larger question of whether the United States can any longer be a place of safety and protection for all families \u201cyearning to be free\u201d of violence and persecution.<\/p>\n The government is, of course, hoping that we don\u2019t make the connections between the stripping away of asylum rights, the larger issue of immigrant rights, and the many other ways that it\u2019s targeting \u201cthe least among us.\u201d That\u2019s a mistake we can\u2019t make and where the teachings of our many faith traditions have encouragement to offer. In Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and more, love, justice, and peace are not parceled out only for certain people in certain places. Across our religions, all life is sacred, full stop!<\/p>\n No Turning Back for Anyone<\/p>\n Intermixed with the important lawgivers of history in that marble frieze in the Supreme Court gallery are engraved winged personifications of \u201cPeace,\u201d \u201cThe Rights of Man,\u201d \u201cHistory,\u201d \u201cAuthority,\u201d \u201cFame,\u201d and more. Those winged characters form what looked to me like a Greco-Roman \u201cchoir of angels,\u201d proclaiming \u201claw and order\u201d at the expense of rights and dignity for us all.<\/p>\n Sitting there, I reflected on just who was not in that room listening to those arguments or forcing the Supreme Court justices to face the very lives impacted by their decision. I thought about all those who will never have access to that courtroom, or justice of any sort for that matter, the millions of people struggling to fight for their communities and a future where everybody is in and nobody is out.<\/p>\n Those people are \u2014 or at least should be \u2014 our hope. They are the true \u201cchoir of angels\u201d who came out for the recent No Kings Day demonstrations and are standing up for the rights and dignity of communities all over the country. They are also the people who are increasingly giving Donald Trump\u00a0historically low<\/a>\u00a0approval ratings. And here\u2019s the truth of these times: this administration has nothing to offer everyday people, other than hardened borders and wars that nobody wants.<\/p>\n At such a moment in history, a movement that connects the dots between our many struggles is certainly the way forward. Therefore, it seems fitting that the coalition that came together to fight this case and protect the rights of asylum seekers calls itself \u201cNo Turning Back.\u201d It reminds me of a song by\u00a0Emma\u2019s Revolution<\/a>\u00a0that I\u2019ve sung many times at protests and gatherings. Its key lines are a reminder of what we all need to keep in mind in this deeply disturbing Trumpian moment of ours:<\/p>\n \u201cGonna keep on moving forward Because indeed, there can be no turning back for any of us. Either we get there together or we never get there at all.<\/p>\n Subscribe to Our Newsletter<\/p>\n Get the latest CounterCurrents updates delivered straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n Liz Theoharis, a\u00a0TomDispatch\u00a0regular<\/a>, is a theologian, ordained minister, and anti-poverty activist. Director of the\u00a0Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice<\/a>\u00a0and co-chair of the\u00a0Poor People\u2019s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival<\/a>, she is the co-author of the new book\u00a0You Only Get What You\u2019re Organized to Take: Lessons from the Movement to End Poverty<\/a>\u00a0and author of\u00a0Always With Us? What Jesus Really Said About the Poor<\/a>. Follow her on BlueSky at\u00a0@liztheoharis.kairoscenter.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2025-09-08-at-9.59.25-AM.png\")
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Keep on moving forward
Keep on moving forward
Never turning back
Never turning back\u201d<\/p>\n