Supreme Court Rules Government Can Turn Away Asylum Seekers at Border

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the government can turn away asylum-seekers at the border, clarifying a law that requires individuals to be inspected when they arrive in the United States. Justice Samuel Alito read a summary of the majority opinion in Mullin v.

Al Otro Lado during a June 25 sitting. The decision addressed whether an alien who seeks to enter the United States from Mexico "arrives in the United States" when still in Mexico. Justice Sonia Sotomayor read a summary of her dissenting opinion. She said many asylum seekers face a challenging journey and referenced the 1939 incident in which the United States and other countries turned back a ship of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, noting that about 250 of those passengers later died in the Holocaust.

Sotomayor stated that the majority's opinion would allow the Trump administration to prevent people from applying for asylum at the border and that this would lead to more deaths. He said he would have said more during the court sitting and provided more details if he had known she planned to speak.

" He noted that the policy at the center of the case had been used under both the Obama and Trump administrations. A group of 13 asylum-seekers, led by immigrants' rights group Al Otro Lado, had filed suit in 2017 against the government's "metering" policy.

That policy allowed border agents at U.S. ports of entry to turn away asylum-seekers to avoid overcrowding of border facilities.

This was not the first time tensions between Supreme Court justices have been on public display. In March, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson publicly clashed over the court's various emergency orders. " Sotomayor and Justice Amy Coney Barrett attempted to distance themselves from political parties and particular presidents in February, with Sotomayor calling parties "the worst thing" to happen to the judiciary.