{"id":725480,"date":"2026-06-25T16:47:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T16:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/725480\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T16:47:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T16:47:13","slug":"justices-side-with-trump-administration-in-border-dispute-over-asylum-seekers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/725480\/","title":{"rendered":"Justices side with Trump administration in border dispute over asylum seekers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the federal government\u2019s policy of systematically turning back asylum seekers before they can reach the U.S.-Mexico border. By a vote of 6-3, the justices agreed<\/a> with the Trump administration in Mullin v. Al Otro Lado<\/a> that the policy, which was adopted a decade ago as a response to a surge in the number of Haitian immigrants seeking asylum outside San Diego, does not violate a federal law that permits noncitizens to apply for asylum when they \u201carrive[] in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito called the question before the court a \u201cstraightforward\u201d one. \u201cIn ordinary speech,\u201d he wrote, \u201cno one would say that a person \u2018arrives in\u2019 a place\u2014for example, a house, a city, or a country\u2014before the person enters that place. The context in which the phrase \u2018arrives in the United States\u2019 is used in the immigration statutes at issue here supports an ordinary meaning.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, in an opinion joined by Justice Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. She wrote that \u201c[t]he consequences of today\u2019s decision are predictable. More people will die. More people will attempt to cross the border illegally, and some will make it while others will not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The policy at the center of the case is known as \u201cmetering.\u201d Officials from the Customs and Border Patrol agency implemented the policy \u2013 which was formalized in a memorandum in 2018 \u2013 by standing along the U.S. border with Mexico and turning back noncitizens without valid travel documents, including asylum seekers, before they could enter the United States.<\/p>\n

The challengers in the case are Al Otro Lado, Inc., an immigrant rights group, and 13 people who are seeking asylum, which is a form of legal protection for people who fear persecution or harm in their own countries. When noncitizens who arrive at a port of entry (an officially designated site to enter the country), such as an airport or a land crossing, indicate that they want to seek asylum, they are normally screened by border officials and then channeled into the asylum system, which may include either an interview with an asylum officer or proceedings in immigration court.<\/p>\n

The challengers argued, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit agreed<\/a>, that, for purposes of applying for asylum, noncitizens who were turned away from ports of entry before they could cross the border had \u201carrived in\u201d the United States.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the Supreme Court reversed that decision. Alito pointed to both the \u201cclear\u201d meaning of the phrase \u201carrives in the United States\u201d \u201cwhen used in everyday speech\u201d and to other immigration laws that distinguish between \u201cactual entrance into the United States and attempted entrance.\u201d The latter distinction, he suggested, shows that \u201c[a]n alien who unsuccessfully attempts to arrive in the United States does not arrive in the United States.\u201d If Congress had wanted \u201caliens who arrive at or near the border to be able to apply for asylum,\u201d Alito emphasized, it could have said so expressly. But, he concluded, \u201cCongress did not use those terms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recommended Citation: Amy Howe, Justices side with Trump administration in border dispute over asylum seekers, SCOTUSblog (Jun. 25, 2026, 11:49 AM), https:\/\/www.scotusblog.com\/2026\/06\/justices-side-with-trump-administration-in-border-dispute-over-asylum-seekers\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the federal government\u2019s policy of systematically turning back asylum seekers before they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-725480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}