The United States Supreme Court has ruled that government officials can turn away asylum seekers at the southern border with Mexico if they have not yet set foot on US soil.
The 6-3 ruling broke down along ideological lines, with the court’s six conservative justices ruling in favour and the three liberal justices dissenting. In the majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito pointed to the provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) that says a foreigner who “arrives in the United States” may apply for asylum and must be inspected by a federal immigration official.
“The wisdom of the policy of metering alien arrivals at the southern border is not before us. We decide only that an alien standing in Mexico does not ‘arriv[e] in the United States’. The INA neither entitles such an alien to apply for asylum nor requires an immigration officer to inspect him.”
Justice Samuel Alito
The ruling clears the way for the Trump administration to revive a controversial policy known as “metering”, in which immigration agents physically block those seeking asylum from crossing the border.
Advocates said the tactic created a humanitarian crisis as thousands of people settled in unsafe makeshift shelters to await their turn. The Trump administration said it was necessary to deal with an increase of asylum seekers at the border.
Rights groups have argued that the practice is a way of bypassing domestic law requiring the US to grant the right to apply for asylum to anyone arriving in the country. They also point out that physically blocking individuals from seeking asylum incentivises more dangerous routes.
The ruling also reverses a lower court’s decision that found the practice of “metering” illegal. The Trump administration, which has taken a hardline approach to all forms of immigration to the US, had appealed the lower court’s decision.
The policy isn’t in place now, though authorities have imposed other restrictions on asylum seekers. The practice predates Trump, with former President Barack Obama using “metering” to turn people away at the southern border in the final year of his presidency, amid a dramatic uptick in crossings.
Trump formalised the strategy during his first term, allowing border agents to decline asylum claims when they deem they no longer have the necessary resources to process them. The administration of US President Joe Biden ended the practice in 2021.
The administration argued that metering is a critical tool that’s been used by Presidents of both parties and should stay available. Federal Attorneys say people turned away at the border could come back later, though lines were thousands of people long when the policy was in place before.
U.S. law allows people seeking refuge to apply for asylum once they are on American soil, regardless of whether they came legally. To qualify for asylum, they must show a fear of persecution in their homeland for specific reasons, like race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.
People who are eventually granted asylum can’t be deported. They can legally work, bring in immediate family, apply for legal residency and seek citizenship. The Justice Department argued that people stopped by authorities haven’t arrived in the country, so immigration agents don’t have to let them apply.
Justice Sotomayor Gives Scathing Dissent
In a scathing dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that the majority’s opinion “regrettably and tragically extinguishes the light of the torch of the Statue of Liberty.”
She noted that the majority’s ruling allows the White House to “circumvent” legal procedures designed to assure every asylum case is individually assessed. She also underscored the cruelty of authorities refusing asylum seekers who escaped persecution and arrived at the US border, only to be turned away.
“They may do so even if the asylum seeker is at the threshold of a port of entry designated to receive all noncitizens who seek entrance into the country. Even if the port of entry has ample capacity to inspect that person, including an available asylum officer trained to process asylum applications. Even if the asylum seeker is certain to be persecuted, or killed, if she is turned away.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor
Sotomayor further said that the majority’s “illogical interpretation is driven almost entirely by a fixation on a single word: ‘in.’” She argued the majority failed to consider the “statutory context and history” of how the word is used.
The ruling comes shortly after a federal judge in early June ruled the Trump administration must lift a separate blanket pause on processing asylum cases, which the administration had imposed due to what it called a border “emergency.”
READ ALSO: Maintain Transparent Public Updates on Gold Purchases and Foreign Exchange – Data Analyst to GoldBod
