Supreme Court backs Trump border policy limiting asylum processing at Mexico line

The Supreme Court gave the Trump administration a 6-3 win on Wednesday, June 25, 2026, ruling that migrants standing on the Mexico side of the border have not yet “arrive[d] in the United States” for purposes of asylum law. The decision lets border officers refuse to inspect and process them at that first point of contact.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority in Mullin v. Al Otro Lado, with Justice Clarence Thomas concurring and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting. The court held that the Immigration and Nationality Act does not require immigration officers to take asylum applications from people still standing in Mexico, and does not entitle them to be inspected at that stage.

The case began in 2017, when Al Otro Lado, a San Diego humanitarian group, and 13 individual asylum seekers sued over a policy that had been put in place by the Department of Homeland Security in 2016 and later formalized in written guidance in 2018. That policy, known as metering, emerged during a surge of Haitian migrants seeking asylum near San Diego and allowed Customs and Border Protection officers at ports of entry to turn back or delay asylum seekers when the crossings were too crowded. The Biden administration rescinded the policy in 2021.

Lower courts, including the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, had sided against the government and found the practice likely violated federal law. The Supreme Court reversed that line of rulings and held that the administration needs flexibility to limit processing when border crossings are overburdened.

The decision could leave thousands more people stranded in Mexico, where many asylum seekers already wait in dangerous conditions for a chance to present their claims.