In a 6-3 decision on Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled that U.S. immigration officials may legally turn back asylum seekers at the Mexican border, greenlighting a now-rescinded immigration policy devised under the Obama administration, later expanded during President Donald Trump’s first term, then ended by the Biden administration in 2021.
The decision clears the way for the Trump administration to resume allowing federal agents to turn back migrants before they physically cross the southern border into the US, preventing them from making an asylum claim until they enter the country.
The case centered on how to interpret immigration laws that state a noncitizen who “arrives in” the US must be allowed to apply for asylum. Justice Samuel Alito, joined by five other conservative justices, 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.” The Court’s three liberal justices dissented.
Read the ruling in full here:
