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Supreme Court backs Trump on border asylum processing
🇵🇰 Pakistan /Crime & Justice

Supreme Court backs Trump on border asylum processing

From Dawn · () English

Translated from English, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News Named sources Outcome reported
  • The US Supreme Court backed the federal government's authority to deny asylum to migrants when border crossings are deemed too overburdened.
  • The 6-3 ruling, supported by conservative justices, overturned a lower court's decision that the policy violated federal law.
  • The government may revive the policy, known as

The US Supreme Court has granted President Donald Trump a significant victory by upholding the federal government's power to reject asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border when officials deem crossings too overwhelmed.

The court's 6-3 decision, driven by its conservative majority, reversed a lower court's finding that the policy, known as "metering," was unlawful. The Trump administration had previously implemented this policy, which allows immigration officials to stop asylum seekers and indefinitely refuse to process their claims. Although dropped by President Joe Biden's administration, the government has indicated it might seek to reinstate it.

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.

— Samuel AlitoConservative Justice Samuel Alito, who authored Thursday’s ruling, wrote that the answer is “no” to whether asylum seekers stopped on the Mexican side of the border had arrived in the United States.

This ruling is one of two immigration-related decisions issued by the court on Thursday that favored Trump's policies. The legal crux of the case centered on whether asylum seekers waiting on the Mexican side of the border had legally "arrived in the United States." Conservative Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, stated that ordinary language and statutory context indicate that arrival occurs only upon entering the country.

In a strong dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued that the ruling effectively authorizes US immigration officers to prevent asylum seekers from setting foot on US soil. She warned of predictable consequences, including increased deaths, more illegal border crossings, and greater numbers of people forced to navigate dangerous conditions along the border in search of a processing point.

The consequences of today’s decision are predictable. More people will die. More people will attempt to cross the border illegally, and some will make it while others will not. More people will be forced to walk along the US-Mexico border in dangerous conditions, trying to find a port that will inspect them.

— Sonia SotomayorJustice Sonia Sotomayor, in a dissent joined by fellow liberal justices, wrote that the ruling authorises US immigration officers to refuse to consider asylum applications by “physically blocking [applicants] from stepping foot onto US soil”.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by Dawn in English. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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