From The Hill: The Supreme Court will review the legality of a now-rescinded immigration policy that turned away noncitizens attempting to cross the border from Mexico without considering their asylum claims, the court announced Monday.
Federal law guarantees a noncitizen who “arrives in the United States” may apply for asylum. The case concerns whether that extends to someone stopped on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border.
“In ordinary English, a person ‘arrives in’ a country only when he comes within its borders,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in court filings. “An alien thus does not ‘arrive in’ the United States while he is still in Mexico.”
Under that interpretation, the federal government from 2016 to 2021 employed a “metering” policy to address an influx of migrant arrivals. It enabled the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to turn back migrants just before they crossed the border and refuse to inspect their asylum claims.
Ironically, it was the Obama administration who first used the metering policy to turn back migrants before they crossed the border, in 2016. The first Trump administration continued using the policy, but the Biden administration rescinded it in 2021, leaving the borders wide open.
Al Otro Lado, an immigration advocacy and aid organization, had filed a lawsuit along with 13 asylum seekers, claiming the “turnback policy was an illegal scheme to circumvent these requirements by physically blocking asylum seekers arriving at ports of entry and preventing them from crossing the border to seek protection.”
The Hill explains:
Last year, a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled 2-1 that metering violated federal law and DHS must inspect all asylum seekers that arrive at a port of entry. The full 9th Circuit later declined to disturb that ruling.
The Trump administration, who is defending the policy, has asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on the issue.
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