Supreme Court Allows Trump Admin to Turn Away Asylum Seekers at the Border
The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the Trump administration can turn away asylum seekers at the U.S. southern border, finding that migrants who have not physically set foot on U.S. soil have not yet “arrived” in the country and are therefore not entitled to make an asylum claim.
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The 6-3 upholds a “metering” policy first put in place under President Obama and later expanded by President Trump that allows Customs and Border Protection agents to turn away asylum seekers before they physically cross into the U.S., at which point the migrants would be eligible to claim asylum and its associated protections under federal law. U.S. law grants the ability to apply for asylum to noncitizens who are “physically present in the United States” or who “arrive” in the U.S.
Justice Alito, writing on behalf of the Court’s majority, said migrants who are turned back before they physically enter the U.S. do not “arrive” by “attempting, and failing, to set foot in this country.”
“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 will allow the Trump administration to reinstate the policy, which was previously ended under President Biden, if they choose to do so. The current administration has called the metering policy “a critical tool for addressing border surges and for preventing overcrowding at ports of entry along the border.”
The three liberal justices dissented, including Justice Sotomayor, who agreed with the lower court findings that Congress intended to allow any migrant approaching a border checkpoint to file for asylum.
“The Court’s illogical interpretation is driven almost entirely by a fixation on a single word: ‘in,’” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, which she read aloud from the bench. “Words, however, must be read in context and with attention to how they fit into the statute as a whole.”
“Since 1917, Congress has required immigration officers to inspect noncitizens who arrive at ports of entry to determine whether they may enter the United States,” she wrote. “This system is designed to ensure that the Government processes each person seeking to come into the United States to determine who should be let in, who should be turned away, and who should be allowed to apply for asylum.”
She criticized the majority ruling for allowing the government to “circumvent all these mandatory procedures by having U. S. immigration officers stand at the border and physically block noncitizens from setting a foot onto U. S. soil.”
The Court’s ruling is the long-awaited conclusion to a lawsuit first filed against the Obama administration nearly ten years ago by Al Otro Lado, an immigrant rights group, and 13 asylum-seekers.
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