A federal appeals court previously ruled that an asylum seeker stopped on the Mexican side of the border should be considered to have arrived in the U.S.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 17 agreed to review an Obama-era policy that allowed border officials to reject asylum seekers before they arrived in the United States.
The Trump administration is appealing a lower court’s ruling that the policy, known as “metering,” that lets U.S. immigration officials decline to process claims of asylum seekers at the border, runs afoul of federal law.
The Biden administration ended the policy, but the Trump administration is considering reinstituting it.
The justices granted the Trump administration’s petition in Noem v. Al Otro Lado without comment in an unsigned order. No justices dissented.
The petition says that federal law states that an alien “who arrives in the United States” may apply for asylum and has to be inspected by U.S. immigration officers.
However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held in a class action that “an alien stopped on the Mexican side of the U.S.–Mexico border ‘arrives in the United States.’”
That ruling is “erroneous and warrants this Court’s review,” the petition states.
During the Obama administration, “U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) faced a ‘massive surge’ of illegal aliens seeking admission at ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexican border,” the petition said.
The large volume of individuals exceeded processing capacity at the ports and put great strain on CBP resources, compromising the agency’s ability to care for those in its custody, the petition said.
In November 2016, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) instituted a policy known as “metering,” which allowed CBP to address overcrowding at ports of entry by preventing “aliens lacking valid travel documents” from entering the United States, the petition stated.
In 2018, during the first Trump administration, DHS formalized the Obama-era policy. In 2019, the Department of Justice adopted a new rule called the transit rule, establishing new asylum eligibility criteria, the petition said.
In November 2021, DHS under the Biden administration rescinded the metering rule, the petition said.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
