Justices to Hear Case Challenging Trump’s Border Turn-Back Policies: Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Case That Tests Where U.S. Border Begins; Supreme Court to Review Trump Policy of Limiting Asylum Claims at Border

AP Photo/Denis Poroy

Justices to hear case challenging Trump’s border turn-back policies:

Supreme Court agrees to hear case that tests where U.S. border begins

The Supreme Court said Monday that it will hear a case asking where the U.S. border begins and whether someone still in Mexico can claim asylum protections that typically take effect only when they actually reach American soil.

At issue is a previous Trump administration policy to turn back migrants who show up at border crossings demanding asylum.

A lower appeals court ruled that they were “on the United States’ doorstep” and that border officers could not block them from entering the country and lodging their asylum claims.

The Trump administration urged the justices to take the case. It argues that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision makes a mockery of the law granting asylum rights only to those who “arrive” in the U.S.

“An ordinary English speaker would not use the phrase ‘arrives in the United States’ to describe someone who is stopped in Mexico,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices.

Andrew R. Arthur, a former immigration judge and congressional staffer who helped write immigration law, said the case tests whether the right to claim asylum trumps the rest of immigration law.

Asylum was a loophole to regular immigration law that helped fuel the Biden border surge, allowing millions of migrants to be caught and released into the U.S. from 2021 through 2024.

“This is an important case because it gets to the issue of whether [asylum law] controls everything with respect to the people who are coming to the United States,” Mr. Arthur said.

Attorneys for Al Otro Lado, the immigrant rights group that led the lawsuit, asked the justices to leave the appeals court decision in place. Otherwise, they said, migrants seeking to reach the U.S. would be stranded in “perilous conditions.”

“The issue before the court is whether noncitizens seeking safety at ports of entry along the U.S. southern border have a legal right to apply for asylum in the United States,” the group said. “The government’s turn-back 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.” --->READ MORE HERE

 Photograph: Hérika Martínez/AFP via Getty Images

Supreme court to review Trump policy of limiting asylum claims at border:

Trump administration’s claim it has authority to ‘meter’ applications may turn on definition of arriving in US

The US supreme court agreed on Monday to hear a defense by the Trump administration of the government’s authority to limit the processing of asylum claims at ports of entry along the US-Mexico border.

The court took up the administration’s appeal of a lower court’s determination that the “metering” policy, under which US immigration officials could stop asylum seekers at the border and decline to process their claims, violated federal law.

The policy was rescinded by former US president Joe Biden, but Donald Trump’s administration has indicated it would consider resuming it. The supreme court is expected to hear the case and issue a ruling by the end of June.

The metering policy is separate from the sweeping ban on asylum at the US-Mexico border that Trump issued after returning to the presidency on 20 January. That policy faces an ongoing legal challenge.

Under US law, a migrant who “arrives in the United States” may apply for asylum and must be inspected by a federal immigration official. The legal issue in the case is whether asylum seekers who are stopped on the Mexican side of the border have arrived in the US.

US immigration officials began turning away asylum seekers at the border in 2016 under former president Barack Obama amid a surge in migration numbers. The metering policy was formalized in 2018 during Trump’s first term in office, with border officials being permitted to limit the processing of asylum claims when ports of entry were at capacity. Biden rescinded the policy in 2021.

The advocacy group Al Otro Lado launched the long-running legal challenge in 2017 with a lawsuit arguing that the metering policy violated federal law, which states that any non-US citizen who arrives in the US may apply for asylum.

Trump’s justice department argued in a supreme court filing that the case was not moot and that his administration would probably resume the use of metering “as soon as changed border conditions warranted that step”, without providing specifics. --->READ MORE HERE

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