{"id":4276,"date":"2026-03-25T06:23:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T06:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/03\/25\/divided-supreme-court-weighs-the-right-to-seek-asylum-at-the-southern-border-los-angeles-times\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T06:23:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T06:23:13","slug":"divided-supreme-court-weighs-the-right-to-seek-asylum-at-the-southern-border-los-angeles-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/03\/25\/divided-supreme-court-weighs-the-right-to-seek-asylum-at-the-southern-border-los-angeles-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Divided Supreme Court weighs the right to seek asylum at the southern border – Los Angeles Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here<\/a>.
WASHINGTON  \u2014 <\/span>The Trump administration urged the Supreme Court on Tuesday to rule that it may block migrants from applying for asylum<\/a> at ports of entry along the southern border.
The administration\u2019s lawyers argued that the right to asylum, which arose in response to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, does not extend to those who are stopped just short of a border post in California, Arizona or Texas.
They pointed to part of the immigration law that says a noncitizen who \u201carrives in the United States … may apply for asylum.\u201d
\u201cYou can\u2019t arrive in the United States while you\u2019re still standing in Mexico. That should be the end of this case,\u201d Vivek Suri, a Justice Department attorney, told the court.
Immigration rights advocates called this claim \u201cperverse\u201d and illogical. They said such a rule would encourage migrants to cross the border illegally rather than present themselves legally at a border post.
The justices sounded divided and a bit uncertain over how to proceed. But the conservative majority is nonetheless likely to uphold the administration\u2019s broad power over immigration enforcement.
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The new case seeks to clarify the immigration laws and resolve an issue that has divided past administrations and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Several of the justices noted, however, the Trump administration is not currently enforcing a \u201cremain in Mexico\u201d policy.
Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned why the court would make a major decision on immigration and asylum with no immediate, practical impact.
Jackson also questioned how the government read the law.
\u201cThe text has to make sense,\u201d she said. \u201cYour reading of the statute suggests Congress was authorizing asylum by requiring people to break the law in order to obtain it.\u201d
Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said he had the same question.
\u201cWhy would Congress do that?\u201d he asked. \u201cYour interpretation privileges someone who illegally enters over someone who legally comes close to the border.\u201d
The Justice Department lawyer replied that the government\u2019s \u201cmetering\u201d policy was a response to a surge. It is not saying \u201cyou can never enter the United States and your only option is to enter illegally. It\u2019s saying our port is at capacity today. Try again some other day,\u201d Suri said.
The case posed a fundamental clash between the government\u2019s need to manage surges at the border and the moral and historical obligation to offer asylum to those fleeing persecution.
In 1939, more than 900 Jewish refugees who were fleeing Nazi Germany aboard the MS St. Louis<\/a> were turned away by Cuba and the United States. They were forced to return to Europe and more than 250 of them died in the Holocaust.
The worldwide moral reckoning spurred many nations, including the United States, to adopt new laws that offer protection to those fleeing persecution.
In the Refugee Act of 1980<\/a>, Congress said that noncitizens either \u201cphysically present in the United States\u201d or \u201cat a land border or port of entry\u201d may apply for asylum.
To be eligible for asylum, a noncitizen had to demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution in their home country due to their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.
Only a small percentage of applicants win their asylum claims, and only after years of litigation.
But faced with an overwhelming surge of migrants, the Obama administration in 2016 adopted a metering policy that required people to wait on the Mexican side of the border.
The Trump and Biden administrations maintained such policies for a time.
Immigrant rights advocates sued, contending the metering policy was illegal. They won before a federal judge in San Diego who ruled the migrants had a right to claim asylum<\/a>.
California<\/a>
Outside Tijuana\u2019s customs facility and its coveted access to U.S. soil, migrants sat in disbelief this week, their futures feeling much darker and uncertain.
In a 2-1 decision, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in 2024.
\u201cTo \u2018arrive\u2019 means \u2018to reach a destination,\u2019\u201d Judge Michelle Friedland wrote for the appeals court. \u201cA person who presents herself to an official at the border has \u2018arrived.\u2019\u201d
The Trump administration appealed.
Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer said the \u201cordinary meaning of \u2018arrives in\u2019 refers to entering a specific place, not just coming close to it. An alien who is stopped in Mexico does not arrive in the United States.\u201d
On Tuesday, the Justice Department attorney said the court should reverse the 9th Circuit and uphold the government\u2019s broad power to block migrants approaching the border.
\u201cI can\u2019t predict the next border surge,\u201d Suri said.
\u201cFor more than 45 years, Congress has guaranteed people arriving at our borders the right to seek asylum, consistent with our international treaty obligations,\u201d said Kelsi Corkran, Supreme Court director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, who argued the case. \u201cYet this administration believes that Congress gave it discretion to completely ignore those requirements, and turn back those who are seeking refuge from persecution at its whim.\u201d
\u201cThe people turned away at our border are fleeing rape, torture, kidnapping, and death threats. You cannot tell families running for their lives to go back and wait in danger because their suffering is inconvenient,\u201d said Nicole Elizabeth Ramos, border rights project director at Al Otro Lado,<\/a> which was the plaintiff in the case. \u201cWe brought this case because the United States made a legal and moral commitment to protect people fleeing persecution.\u201d
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David G. Savage has covered the Supreme Court and legal issues for the Los Angeles Times in the Washington bureau since 1986.
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This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here. WASHINGTON  \u2014 The Trump administration urged the Supreme Court on Tuesday to rule that it may block migrants from applying for asylum at ports of entry along the southern border.The administration\u2019s lawyers argued that the right to asylum, which arose in response […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4276","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}