The United States Supreme Court allowed Trump to restrict asylum seekers at the border

The Supreme Court has ruled that immigrants arriving at the US-Mexico border do not have the right to claim asylum until they set foot in the country.

6-3 The decision would allow President Donald Trump, a Republican, to revive a policy first used in 2016, but repealed in 2021 by the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden.

Under federal law, an immigrant who “arrives” in the U.S. can claim asylum, which the Trump administration has argued does not stop those at the Mexican border.

The Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could revoke temporary protections that allow more than 356,000 Syrian and Haitian refugees to stay in the United States.

Justice Alito delivered the court’s opinion on Thursday, calling the case “straightforward.”

“In common parlance, one does not say ‘one reaches a place’ before one enters that place,” he said.

The decision in Noem v Al Otro Lado means the Trump administration won an appeal against a lower court ruling that the asylum return policy was illegal.

The policy is called a “gauge” because US immigration officials may use it to limit the number of asylum seekers allowed to apply for protection each day because they are overburdened to process more claims.

Under federal law, any noncitizen who is “physically present in” or “entered the United States” may make a formal claim that he is fleeing political, racial, or religious persecution in his country of origin.

An attorney for the immigration advocacy group argued that asylum seekers are admitted to the United States when they arrive at a port of entry.

When this case reached the Supreme Court in March, arguments centered on what it meant to reach America.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative, said, “Ah, now that person, shall we say, is going to get to the United States?” What is the magical thing or the controversial thing that we want to say?

Another conservative, Justice Neil Gorsuch, asked whether an immigrant arrived in the U.S. at the back of the line at a port of entry or at the Rio Grande border with Mexico.

Assistant Attorney General Vivek Suri, who argued for the Trump administration, told the court: “You can’t stay in Mexico and come to the United States. This should be the end of this case.”

But Kelsey Corkran, a constitutional attorney who represented the immigrants, told the court that the immigrants arrived in the United States “about to leave the port of entry.”

In the year After returning to office in 2025, Trump also announced a broader asylum ban at the border, separate from the measure policy and an ongoing legal challenge.