Photo: Alamy
The Trump administration scored a win on Thursday on a policy regarding illegal migrants seeking asylum in the United States.
In a new 6-3 ruling from the Supreme Court, the justices affirmed a policy that blocks migrants from seeking asylum within the United States if they have not yet crossed the physical U.S.-Mexico border.
Under federal law, any alien who is physically present in the U.S. is allowed to apply for asylum. The key point of this case centered on the definition of what it means to “arrive” in the United States – whether a migrant must have his or her feet on American soil to apply for asylum.
“This case presents a straightforward question: whether an alien who seeks to enter the United States from Mexico ‘arrives in the United States’ when he or she is still in Mexico,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion. “In the decision below, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit answered ‘yes.’ That is wrong.”
The policy in question, which allowed federal authorities to stop migrants from crossing the border before they could claim asylum, was used in the past by the Trump administration as a type of metering process to stem the flow of illegal entrants.
The Biden administration rescinded this federal guidance in 2021, following a summary judgment from a U.S. District Court overturning the policy. The case continued to work its way through the court system, and the lower court decision was upheld by the Ninth Circuit in 2024.
In 2025, the Trump Department of Homeland Security asked the court to review this policy.
Alito suggested in the opinion on Thursday that the landscape of the asylum policy at hand was linked to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.
SCOTUS heard arguments in the case in March 2026.
“The wisdom of the policy of metering alien arrivals at the southern border is not before us,” Alito wrote in the opinion.
He continued, “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. We reverse the judgment of the Ninth Circuit and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
According to the Associated Press, while this asylum policy is not currently in place, it could be potentially revived by the Trump administration in light of Thursday’s court decision.