The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for the Trump administration to turn away asylum seekers at the southern border who haven't yet crossed into U.S. territory.Why it matters: The Court's decision resolves a years-long legal fight over a Border Patrol practice when there's limited bandwidth to process people at a port of entry.Driving the news: "An alien standing in Mexico does not 'arriv[e] in the United States' by attempting, and failing, to set foot in this country. An alien 'arrives in the United States' only when he crosses the border," Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion for Mullin v. Al Otro Lado.The turn away system, sometimes called metering, was first used by Customs and Border Protection under the Obama administration in 2016 to manage capacity at ports of entry during high waves of traffic. It was later expanded by the first Trump administration.These asylum seekers would then typically wait in Mexico until the ports' flow reduced and there was another opportunity to attempt to enter the country. But the policy still allowed people with valid travel documents to enter the country any time.The policy was overturned by a judge during the Biden administration.Zoom out: Lawyers representing Al Otro Lado, a non-profit legal services organization that aids migrants and means "the other side" in Spanish, failed to convince judges that immigration law bound agents to process all asylum seekers at these ports of entry. During oral arguments, Alito questioned attorneys about what it means to arrive in the U.S., which an explicit part of law on how someone can claim asylum in the U.S."Do you think someone who comes to the front door of a house and knocks at the door has arrived in the house?" Alito asked the advocates' attorneys, using an analog for the port of entry.The bottom line: "We had to go all the way to SCOTUS to vindicate the principle that an alien is not "in the United States" until he is, in fact, in the United States," James Percival, the Department of Homeland Security's General Counsel, said in a statement.
