Supreme Court sides with Trump administration regarding asylum-seekers
The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and the Trump administration regarding when asylum-seekers officially "arrive" in the U.S.In a 6-3 decision split along ideological lines, the Court held that aliens seeking asylum do not “arrive in the United States” until they physically cross the border into the country and therefore are not entitled to inspection by border officials until they have entered onto U.S. soil.'An alien "arrives in the United States" only when he crosses the border.'The case stems from the federal government’s “metering” policy — first adopted in 2016 amid a surge of migrants at the southern border — that limited the number of aliens whom Customs and Border Patrol agents would inspect each day for asylum. When a port of entry reached capacity, officials physically prevented additional aliens from entering until capacity became available again. In 2017, asylum-seekers and Al Otro Lado, an immigration advocacy organization, brought forward a class-action lawsuit arguing that the federal government was unlawfully denying aliens access to asylum procedures. The federal district court in Southern California granted summary judgment in favor of the noncitizens and declared the government’s policy unlawful. The metering policy was then discontinued in November 2021, though the second Trump administration has attempted to revive it. A divided Ninth Circuit panel affirmed the summary judgment, ruling that an alien “arrives in the United States” when said alien — even while standing on the Mexico side of the border — encounters a U.S. official and thus must be inspected for asylum claims. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito reversed the lower court’s ruling. The court held that the meaning of “arrives in the United States” requires physically entering the country. Therefore, under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, an alien standing on the Mexico side of the border is not entitled to inspection by a U.S. official. “We hold that an alien who is 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,” Alito wrote.RELATED: Ketanji Brown Jackson melts down over SCOTUS ruling against Hawaii gun law: 'The court's objective is protecting guns' U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justices Samuel Alito (L) and Clarence Thomas (R).Chip Somodevilla/POOL/AFP/Getty ImagesThe court highlighted the text of other INA provisions and subsequent amendments to the statute to indicate that Congress intended asylum and inspection rights to apply only after an alien enters the country. “That Congress amended §1158(a) in IIRIRA to replace ‘at a land border or port of entry’ with ‘arrives in the United States’ suggests that we should not read those phrases — which carry different ordinary meanings — to have the same meaning.”Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented, arguing that Congress intended border officials to inspect and process all aliens who present themselves at ports of entry, regardless of whether they have physically stepped into the U.S. The dissent contended that the majority’s decision “ignores the statutory context and history” of the INA and weakens the asylum protections Congress created for people fleeing persecution. "The Court today holds that the Executive Branch may 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.” Sotomayor added, "The Court's illogical interpretation is driven almost entirely by a fixation on a single word: 'in.'"Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
