The Supreme Court has ruled that asylum seekers can be turned away at the U.S. border, marking a major shift in U.S. asylum policy.
| PULSE POINTS |
❓ WHAT HAPPENED: The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of reinstating policy from the first Trump administration, allowing asylum seekers to be turned back at the U.S.-Mexico border without being granted the opportunity to enter and claim asylum. The decision concludes a lawfare battle spanning the first Trump administration, the Biden-Harris era, and the second Trump administration. 📍 WHEN & WHERE: The ruling was issued by the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, following years of legal challenges dating back to 2017. 💬 KEY QUOTE: “In ordinary speech, no one would say that a person ‘arrives in’ a place … before the person enters that place.” – Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority. 🎯 IMPACT: The decision empowers the federal government to deny asylum seekers entry at the border, so that they cannot enter the U.S. and remain there while their asylum claim is processed, with an often equally lengthy deportation process to follow if the claim is found to be bogus. 📺 DETAIL: The case originated in 2017 during the Trump administration when the “turnback” policy was implemented to block migrants from reaching U.S. soil to claim asylum. While the Biden government rescinded the policy in 2021, allowing migrants to enter the U.S. in unprecedented numbers, President Donald J. Trump pushed to remove the legal roadblocks to its reinstatement after regaining office in 2025. Federal law allows migrants to claim asylum in the U.S. once they arrive in the country, and the Supreme Court case hinged on whether or not a migrant attempting to claim asylum at the border counted as an arrival for legal purposes. Vivek Suri, assisting the President’s Solicitor General, successfully argued that “You can’t arrive in the United States while you’re still standing in Mexico. That should be the end of this case.” |
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