Washington, June 26: The Trump administration on Thursday welcomed a series of rulings by the US Supreme Court on immigration matters, including a decision permitting federal authorities to turn away migrants seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border before they enter the United States.
Administration officials said the decisions strengthen immigration enforcement measures and reaffirm the temporary nature of humanitarian protections.In a post on X, US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the three rulings delivered by the Supreme Court this week supported the enforcement of immigration laws. He said the decisions allow authorities to bar migrants from applying for asylum if they have not entered the United States, facilitate the removal of lawful permanent residents convicted of crimes, and confirm that Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is a temporary measure that may be terminated when deemed appropriate.
Mullin said the rulings provide the administration with additional tools to continue border security and immigration enforcement efforts.
Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Supreme Court had upheld the administration’s authority to terminate Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian nationals. He stated that the Department of Justice had successfully defended the position that TPS was intended to be temporary and said the ruling rejected efforts to extend the programme beyond its original purpose.
According to reports, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favour of allowing the administration to implement the policy known as “metering,” which permits border officials to limit the number of migrants allowed to seek asylum at ports of entry each day. The majority held that migrants have not “arrived in” the United States until they physically enter the country.
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said that the ordinary meaning of the phrase “arrives in the United States” supports the interpretation that a person enters a place only upon physical entry.
The administration argued that the policy was necessary to manage large numbers of migrants at the southern border and maintained that individuals initially turned away could return later to seek asylum.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the ruling represented a victory for the administration’s immigration policies and stated that the government remains committed to restoring what it described as the integrity of the asylum system.
The three Democratic-appointed justices dissented. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, reading from her dissent, said the ruling “regrettably and tragically extinguishes the light of the torch of the Statue of Liberty.”
The metering policy was first introduced during the Obama administration in 2016, expanded during President Donald Trump’s first term, suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and rescinded by the Biden administration in 2021. A federal court in California later ruled the policy unlawful, a decision that was upheld by the Ninth Circuit before being reversed by the Supreme Court.