The Supreme Court could limit asylum claims from those arriving at the southern border

WASHINGTON— The Supreme Court agreed to hear from Trump on Monday administrative profession that claims migrants have no right to seek asylum at the southern border.

Rather, the administration says border agents can prevent asylum seekers from entering U.S. territory and deny their claims without a hearing.

The new case aims to clarify immigration laws and resolve an issue that divided previous administrations and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Under federal law, migrants facing persecution in their home countries can apply for asylum and receive a screening hearing if they are “physically present in the United States” or if such an individual “arrives in the United States.”

Since 2016, however, the Obama, Biden and Trump administrations responded to the surges at the border by passing temporary rules that required migrants to wait on the Mexican side before seeking asylum.

But in May there was division the 9th Circuit Court ruled those restrictions were illegal if they prevented migrants from seeking asylum.

“Arrive” means “to reach a destination,” Judge Michelle Friedland wrote, citing a dictionary definition. “A person who presents himself to an official at the border has ‘arrived’.”

She said this interpretation “does not radically expand the right to asylum.” In contrast, “the administration’s reading would reflect a radical reconstruction of the right to seek asylum, because it would give the executive branch broad discretion to prevent people from applying by blocking them at the border.”

“We therefore conclude that a noncitizen stopped by U.S. officials at the border is eligible to seek asylum,” she wrote.

The 2-1 decision upheld a federal judge in San Diego who ruled for migrants who filed a class-action lawsuit, saying they had been wrongly denied an asylum hearing.

But Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the Supreme Court to review and overturn the ruling on appeal, noting that 15 9th Circuit judges had joined in dissent calling the decision “radical” and “clearly wrong.”

In football, a running back does not “enter” the end zone if he is stopped at the one-yard line,” Sauer wrote.

He said federal immigration law “does not give aliens around the world the right to enter the United States so they can seek asylum.” From abroad they can “seek entry as refugees,” he said, but the government can enforce its laws by “preventing illegal immigrants from entering U.S. soil.”

Immigrant rights lawyers recommended that the court reject the appeal because the government no longer uses the “meter system,” which required migrants to wait for a hearing.

Since June 2024, they said, the administration has restricted inspections and processing of these noncitizens under another provision of law that authorizes the president to “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens” if he believes they would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

The government also routinely turns back migrants who cross the border illegally.

But the attorney general said the asylum provision needs to be clarified.

The justices voted early next year to hear the Noem versus Al Otro Lado case, deciding “whether an alien stopped on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border ‘arrives in the United States’ within the meaning of” federal immigration law.