Supreme Court to Review Border Asylum Case

The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will hear a challenge to a border policy aimed at preventing migrant surges by stopping asylum-seekers from reaching U.S. soil to make their claims.

The “metering” policy was implemented during President Donald Trump’s first term in 2018 but rescinded by former President Joe Biden and has not been restored by the second Trump administration. The policy aimed to stop asylum-seekers from being able to “arrive” on U.S. soil to make their claim by stopping them before reaching the American side of the border.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit undermined that policy by ruling that under immigration law, a person on the Mexican side of the border is considered to have arrived in the United States if they come into contact with a border official. That person may claim asylum with an immigration official even if they are on the Mexican side.

The Justice Department appealed the case to the Supreme Court, arguing that the ruling was “erroneous” and limits the Trump administration’s ability to address surges at the southern border.

“Before this litigation, border officials had repeatedly addressed migrant surges by standing at the border and preventing aliens without valid travel documents from entering,” reads the DOJ’s petition asking the high court to review the case. “The decision below declares that practice unlawful, on the theory that aliens stopped on the Mexican side of the border have a statutory right to apply for asylum in the United States and to be inspected by federal immigration officers.

“The decision thus deprives the Executive Branch of a critical tool for addressing border surges and for preventing overcrowding at ports of entry along the border.”

Lawyers for the class of asylum-seekers who sued over the practice claimed in their filing to the Supreme Court that because the policy is not in place, the lower court’s ruling “has almost no present implications, and likely no future implications either.”

The Supreme Court’s decision to hear Noem v. Al Otro Lado came in an orders list released by the high court on Monday, and it was the only case the justices announced they would take up. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear nearly four dozen cases during the current term and is expected to add additional cases in the coming weeks.

The Noem v. Al Otro Lado case marks the first major immigration and border policy case the justices have agreed to take up. The justices are expected to discuss whether to take up either of the two DOJ petitions seeking review of Trump’s birthright citizenship order at their closed-door conference on Friday.

The January executive order from Trump, which claims that birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment does not include children born on U.S. soil to parents who are both in the country illegally or on a temporary basis, has been struck down by various federal courts across the country.