{"id":7481,"date":"2026-06-25T16:35:36","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T16:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/06\/25\/us-supreme-court-paves-way-for-government-to-block-asylum-seekers-at-border\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T16:35:36","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T16:35:36","slug":"us-supreme-court-paves-way-for-government-to-block-asylum-seekers-at-border","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/06\/25\/us-supreme-court-paves-way-for-government-to-block-asylum-seekers-at-border\/","title":{"rendered":"US Supreme Court paves way for government to block asylum seekers at border"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><em>The court\u2019s three liberal justices dissented, saying the ruling \u2018circumvents\u2019 US law by allowing agents to prevent asylum seekers from making a claim.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div aria-live=\"polite\" aria-atomic=\"true\">\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The ruling on Thursday clears the way for the administration of President Donald Trump to revive a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2025\/11\/17\/us-supreme-court-to-weigh-metering-of-asylum-claims-at-us-mexico-border\">controversial policy<\/a> known as \u201cmetering\u201d, in which immigration agents physically block those seeking asylum from crossing the border.<\/p>\n<section>\n<h2>Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n<p><span>list of 3 items<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span>list 1 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/4\/24\/us-appeals-court-rejects-trumps-ban-on-asylum-seekers-teeing-up-appeal\">US appeals court rejects Trump\u2019s ban on asylum seekers, teeing up appeal<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 2 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/sports\/2026\/5\/26\/minorities-fear-world-cup-threat-of-ice-and-how-immigration-is-enforced\">Minorities at World Cup fear ICE threat and how US immigration is enforced<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 3 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/6\/5\/judge-strikes-down-trump-bar-on-asylum-visa-processing-for-39-countries\">Judge strikes down Trump bar on asylum, visa processing for 39 countries<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n<p>Rights groups have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2021\/3\/26\/stuck-in-limbo-metered-asylum-seekers-stranded-in-mexico\">argued<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n<p>The 6-3 ruling broke down along ideological lines, with the court\u2019s six conservative justices ruling in favour and the three liberal justices dissenting.<\/p>\n<p>In the majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito pointed to the provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) that says a foreigner who \u201carrives in the United States\u201d may apply for asylum and must be inspected \u200cby a federal immigration official.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe wisdom of the policy of metering alien arrivals at the southern border is not before us,\u201d Alito wrote. \u201cWe decide only that an alien standing in Mexico does not \u2018arriv[e] in the United States\u2019. The INA neither entitles such an alien to apply for asylum nor requires an immigration officer to inspect him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The ruling reverses a lower court\u2019s decision that found the practice of \u201cmetering\u201d illegal. The Trump administration, which has taken a hardline approach to all forms of immigration to the US, had appealed the lower court\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n<p>The practice predates Trump, with former President Barack Obama using \u201cmetering\u201d to turn people away at the southern border in the final year of his presidency, amid a dramatic uptick in crossings.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>In a scathing dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the majority\u2019s ruling allows the White House to \u201ccircumvent\u201d legal procedures designed to assure every asylum case is individually assessed.<\/p>\n<p>She also underscored the cruelty of authorities refusing asylum seekers who escaped persecution and arrived at the US border, only to be turned away.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey 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,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven if the asylum seeker is certain to be persecuted, or killed, if she is turned away.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sotomayor further said the majority\u2019s \u201cillogical interpretation is driven almost entirely by a fixation on a single word: \u2018in.&#8217;\u201d She argued the majority failed to consider the \u201cstatutory context and history\u201d of how the word is used.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u201cemergency\u201d.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"haiti-and-syria-tps-ruling\">Haiti and Syria TPS ruling<\/h2>\n<p>In another immigration ruling on Thursday, the top court cleared the way for the Trump administration to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/4\/29\/us-supreme-court-hears-haiti-syria-tps-case-with-wide-ranging-implications\">strip<\/a> legal protections from hundreds of thousands of Syrians and Haitians living in the US with Temporary Protected Status (TPS).<\/p>\n<p>The status is granted when it is deemed unsafe for citizens of a country to return to their homelands, in light of armed conflict, political instability or natural disaster.<\/p>\n<p>About 350,000 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians are believed to currently be living in the US under TPS. Following Thursday\u2019s ruling, those with TPS were subject to losing their work authorisation and could be subject to deportation.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Alito again wrote the majority opinion, saying that the US law on TPS \u201cplainly bars\u201d judicial review of the executive branch\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n<p>Alito also opposed a lower court\u2019s finding that Trump\u2019s actions towards Haitians were likely motivated by \u201cracial animus\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Plaintiffs in that case had pointed to Trump\u2019s campaign comments, including spreading unfounded claims that Haitians living in Ohio were killing and eating pets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The court\u2019s three liberal justices dissented, saying the ruling \u2018circumvents\u2019 US law by allowing agents to prevent asylum seekers from making a claim. 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 &#8230; <a title=\"US Supreme Court paves way for government to block asylum seekers at border\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/06\/25\/us-supreme-court-paves-way-for-government-to-block-asylum-seekers-at-border\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about US Supreme Court paves way for government to block asylum seekers at border\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}