Asylum claims at the border

Supreme Court backs federal power to turn away asylum seekers at the border

The Supreme Court ruled 6, 3 on Thursday that the federal government may turn back asylum seekers at the U.S., Mexico border before they set foot on American soil, handing the Trump administration a major legal victory in its effort to control who enters the country and when.

Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the conservative majority, held that a migrant standing in Mexico has not legally "arrived in the United States" and therefore cannot demand asylum screening under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The decision reverses a Ninth Circuit ruling that had blocked the practice known as "metering", a policy that caps the number of daily asylum applications accepted at ports of entry. With that lower-court barrier now removed, the administration regains a tool it has called essential to managing the southern border.

The practical meaning is plain: border officials are not required to inspect or process asylum claims until a person physically crosses onto U.S. soil. For years, immigrant-rights groups argued the opposite, that presenting yourself to a U.S. officer at the border line was enough to trigger legal protections. Six justices disagreed.

Justice Alito grounded the majority opinion in common sense and statutory text. As the New York Post reported, Alito wrote:

"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."

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