Supreme Court Clears Path for Potential Revival of Controversial Border Asylum Policy
The U.S. Supreme Court has paved the way for the Trump administration to potentially reinstate a divisive immigration policy once used to turn away asylum-seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border.
In a 6-3 split decision, the nation’s highest court struck down a lower court injunction that had blocked the practice: a daily cap on the number of people eligible to submit new asylum claims each day. The policy was first implemented during the Obama administration, before being scaled up significantly across Donald Trump’s first presidential term.
Immigrant rights advocates have long argued the tactic created a severe humanitarian crisis, forcing thousands of stranded migrants to wait their processing turn in dangerous, unregulated makeshift shelters along the border. The Trump administration, by contrast, maintains the cap was a necessary measure to manage a sharp, unmanageable surge in asylum-seekers arriving at the southern border.
The daily capping policy is not currently in effect, though U.S. authorities have enacted other sweeping restrictions on asylum access in recent years. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has not confirmed whether it plans to bring the policy back, but agency leadership publicly praised the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“This decision opens up an important tool to continue securing our southern border,” said James Percival, DHS’s general counsel.
The Trump administration argued in court that the policy, commonly called asylum metering, is a critical border management tool used by presidents from both major U.S. political parties, and should remain available to federal officials. Federal attorneys note that migrants turned away under the policy are permitted to return to apply at a later date, even though waiting backlogs stretched to thousands of people when the policy was last active.
This case is one of several high-stakes immigration lawsuits the Supreme Court is weighing during its current term, including a separate push by the Trump administration to roll back restrictions on birthright citizenship. Earlier this week on Thursday, the high court also issued a separate ruling that allowed the Trump administration to end temporary deportation protections for migrants fleeing instability and armed conflict in their home countries.
Under current U.S. federal law, all migrants who arrive in the United States hold the legal right to apply for asylum, and to undergo screening to assess whether they face a credible risk of persecution if returned to their home countries.
