The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to rule on the practice of “metering,” under which U.S. authorities limit the number of asylum seekers who can present themselves at a port of entry each day to seek protection. The policy was first implemented during the Obama administration and expanded during President Donald Trump’s first term, with U.S. Attorney General Dr. John Sawyer called it “a critical tool to address border surges and prevent overcrowding at ports of entry along the border.”
“In ordinary English, a person only arrives in a country when he enters within its borders,” Sawyer said in court filings. “The alien therefore does not ‘arrive’ in the United States while in Mexico.”
Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority — Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas, and Trump-appointed Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, agreed.
“In ordinary speech, one cannot say that a person ‘arrives’ at a place — for example, a home, a city, or a country — before the person enters that place,” Justice Samuel Alito said.
“We believe that a foreigner standing in Mexico does not arrive in the United States by trying, and failing, to set foot in this country,” he added. “An alien only arrives in the United States when he or she crosses the border.”
Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined the scathing dissent penned by fellow liberal Sonia Sotomayor. Jackson also objected separately. In a sign of her strong dissent from the ruling, Sotomayor took the rare step of reading portions of her 35-page dissent — nearly twice as long as the majority opinion — from the bench.
“Today the Court holds that the executive branch may circumvent all of these mandatory procedures by having U.S. immigration officers stand at the border and physically prevent noncitizens from setting foot on U.S. soil,” Sotomayor began. “They may do so even if the asylum seeker is on the doorstep of a port of entry designated to receive all non-citizens seeking entry into the country. Even if the port of entry has sufficient capacity to search that person, including an available asylum officer trained to process asylum claims. Even if the asylum seeker is certain to be persecuted or killed, if rejected.”
Sotomayor noted that measuring the measurements “created dire humanitarian conditions at the border.”
As U.S. Customs and Border Protection “returned more and more asylum seekers who had traveled dangerous distances to get to that point, temporary camps sprung up on the Mexican side of the border, where tens of thousands of those returned waited days, then weeks and months, for asylum claims to be processed that often never came through.”
Sotomayor pointed to the dangerous conditions in the border camps, asserting that “those who were removed under the metering policy also found themselves vulnerable to persecution and the very crime they were fleeing,” and cited cases in which people waiting in Mexico were killed, raped, kidnapped and assaulted. It detailed cases in which desperate asylum seekers, including children, drowned while trying to swim across the Rio Grande into the United States.
“Hundreds more met a similar fate, and many more died crossing the desert along the southern border, all of which makes 2020 and 2021 among the years.”The bloodiest years “For migrants to cross at various areas of the southern border,” Sotomayor wrote.
“The words of the law must be read in context and with regard to their place in the overall legal scheme.”
“The majority’s conclusion focuses almost exclusively on the ‘in’ within the phrase ‘arrives in the United States,’” Sotomayor stressed. “If that were all there was to this case, the majority might have made the better argument. But legal interpretation requires much more than that.”
“The words of the law must be read in context and with an eye to their place in the overall legal scheme,” she continued, noting one of the most frequently repeated principles in modern American jurisprudence.
“The majority’s interpretation of ‘arrives in the United States’ makes no sense,” Sotomayor said. “First of all, the majority ignores that ‘arrival’ and ‘access’ in the immigration context have never focused on the precise location of a non-citizen’s feet.”
She continued:
Imagine a movie theater policy that states, “Anyone arriving at the theater may purchase a ticket and all moviegoers must scan their tickets before entering.” If someone went to the ticket booth directly outside the theater, it would be unreasonable to think that they could not purchase a ticket under the policy because they had not yet “entered” the theater. Perhaps the policy could have been made clearer by using the preposition “in,” but everyone understands, from the context, what the policy means.
Context leads to the same conclusion here. Requiring an asylum seeker to step foot across a border and become an “admissible applicant”…may make sense when looking at the phrase “arrives” in a vacuum, but it makes the legal scheme generally unclear. Alternatively, when the text is interpreted in context, an asylum seeker can be said to “arrive in the United States” for the purposes of being an admission seeker and seeking asylum when she walks to a port of entry and physically presents herself to an immigration officer standing on U.S. soil.
Sotomayor also noted that the modern asylum system “evolved in response to the international moral reckoning that followed the Holocaust and World War II,” when the United States and other countries were indifferent. He turned back Ships loaded with desperate Jewish refugees and refused asylum for Jews fleeing almost certain death in Nazi-occupied Europe, including the family of the famous diarist Anne Frank.
Justice highlighted the opposition An ill-fated trip From multiple sclerosis Saint LouisWhich carried more than 900 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. After being refused docking in Cuba, the United States and Canada, the ship returned to Europe, where hundreds of its passengers were killed during the Holocaust.
“Congress has passed it Refugee law “In 1980 because she didn’t want this country to repeat the mistakes of its past,” Sotomayor said. “However, if the refugees on board the MS Saint Louis If they walked into a port of entry on our southern border today, the majority’s interpretation would allow immigration officials to refuse to even consider their asylum claims by physically preventing them from entering American soil.
“The majority’s interpretation allows the government to do this even if the refugees adhered to all applicable laws and regulations, even if the port had sufficient capacity to search them, and even if returning them would lead to the same persecution from which they narrowly escaped,” she added. “The consequences of today’s decision are predictable. More people will die.”
In another unusual move, Alito continued reading Sotomayor Defense Measurement policy needed to maintain “orderly and humane” conditions at the border. He then moved on to his next opinion, which upheld the Trump administration’s repeal of temporary deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians.
Reply to Mullen “We believe today’s ruling violates international law, as well as the express intent of Congress, which enshrined the rights and obligations of the United States,” said Erika Pinheiro, Executive Director of Al Otro Lado. Refugee Convention In US federal law for more than 40 years.”
She continued: “For decades, the United States has allowed individuals and families fleeing persecution, torture, and death to seek protection at the United States’ borders and exercise their legal right to seek asylum.” “This decision has destroyed the United States’ standing as a world leader in promoting refugee rights and threatens to serve as a dangerous justification for other countries that illegally prevent refugees from crossing borders in search of safety.”
“In a world of increasing conflict and climate disasters, this tightening of borders to prevent the entry of the most vulnerable groups will certainly lead to the loss of more lives,” Pineiro added.
Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of Voice of America, also issued a statement, emphasizing that the two rulings “will devastate women and children fleeing unimaginable danger, vetted workers who have been in the United States for decades making significant contributions, seniors who depend on health care providers for life-saving care, and business owners who depend on their workers to sustain their businesses, among many other things.”
“Whether denying asylum seekers the opportunity to be heard or taking away temporary protected status from families who have spent years building their lives in this country, this corrupt court, beholden to an authoritarian-like president, has once again chosen politics over the Constitution,” said Congresswoman Analilia Mejia (D-N.J.).
She continued: “Asylum seekers deserve the opportunity to have their claims heard before the government decides their fate.” He added: “Above all, this case is cruel and deprives our fellow human beings who seek safety from humanity.”
“These rulings should concern every American,” Mejia added. “When the government can deny one group a hearing or strip them of protections they have relied on for years, it’s not just immigrants who lose. It sends a dangerous message that constitutional rights can be thrown away when those in power find them politically expedient.”
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) He said And that by targeting asylum, judges are “preventing the most vulnerable people from seeking safety on our shores.”
On social media, Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) said: He said“This extreme Supreme Court gave Trump the green light to block asylum seekers at the border and end TPS protections for Haitians and Syrians.”
“People fleeing danger deserve compassion, not cruelty,” Lee added. “We must repair and expand the court immediately.”
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