The Supreme Court delivered two significant immigration decisions, expanding the authority of the administration to manage the nation's borders. The court ruled in Mullin v. Al Otro Lado that asylum seekers who are stopped on the other side of the Southern border are not physically present in the United States, denying them the right to enter and remain while their asylum claims are pending.
In a 6-3 majority opinion, the court argued that the term "in" must be interpreted literally, meaning that individuals must be physically present in the United States to make an asylum claim. This decision reverses a policy implemented by the Obama administration and later restored and expanded by the Trump administration.
The Biden administration had sought to rescind this policy, allowing undocumented persons to enter the country while their asylum claims are pending. However, the court's decision effectively bars this approach, limiting the administration's ability to facilitate the entry of undocumented persons.
The court also delivered a major victory in Mullin v. Doe, upholding the administration's right to strip over 356,000 Syrian and Haitian immigrants of temporary protection status. This decision reverses a lower court ruling that had afforded greater leeway to the Obama and Biden administrations in granting such status.
The combination of these two decisions offers significant advances for the administration in addressing millions of undocumented persons in the country. However, immigration groups and advocates have criticized the decisions, arguing that they will exacerbate the nation's immigration crisis.
A dissent in Mullin v. Al Otro Lado invoked the image of the M. S. St. Louis, where Jews fleeing Nazi Germany were denied entry in various countries only to be returned to Germany, where many died in the Holocaust. However, the majority countered that the asylum claims made at the nation's borders are often rejected or invalid, and that the court should not dictate policies on border control.
The decisions in Mullin v. Doe and Mullin v. Al Otro Lado will not erase the backlog in immigration cases or remove millions of unvetted immigrants. However, in two 6-3 opinions, the administration regained substantial authority in the management of the nation's borders.
