Supreme Court Lets the US Turn Back Asylum Seekers at the Border, 6-3.

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on June 25, 2026, that the government can turn asylum seekers back at the border before they ever get to apply. In Mullin v. Al Otro Lado, the court held that a person standing in Mexico who tries and fails to step onto U.S. soil has not “arrived in the United States,” and so is not entitled to ask for asylum, SCOTUSblog reported. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion.

What the Court Decided

The case turned on a single phrase. U.S. law says a person who is “physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States” may apply for asylum. The majority read “arrives in” to mean physically crossing the line.

Under that reading, a person who reaches a port of entry and is stopped on the bridge has not arrived, no matter that they are standing at the official door asking for protection. The decision blesses a practice called “metering,” in which officers limit how many people they will process each day and turn the rest back into Mexico.

What Metering Does

Metering sounds like a queue. In practice it is a wall.

Customs and Border Protection officers stand on the U.S. side and stop people from crossing beyond a daily number the port chooses to process. People who are turned back wait in Mexican border cities, often for months, exposed to kidnapping and extortion. The government called it a delay. The dissent called it a denial.

The Dissent

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a 35-page dissent, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson. She rejected the idea that “arrive in” must mean a person is already physically inside a place.

“If someone said, ‘Call me when you arrive in Washington, D.C.,’ it would be logical to call them once you have landed at DCA Airport, just across the river in Virginia.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, dissenting

Her point was that the majority pulled the asylum statute out of the larger body of law on how people are inspected and admitted, reading one word in isolation to reach a harsh result Congress never wrote.

The Right It Narrows

The right to seek asylum is one of the clearest promises in U.S. law. The Refugee Act of 1980 wrote into the Immigration and Nationality Act that a person who reaches the country and fears persecution can ask for protection, no matter how they arrived. The United States also signed a 1951 treaty barring it from returning people to places where they would be harmed.

Mullin does not repeal that right. It moves the line in front of it. If a person can be stopped one step before the border, the promise that applies once they “arrive” never has to be kept.

Why It Matters

When the government first used turnbacks at scale, the result was not orderly waiting. Asylum seekers grew desperate enough to cross between ports of entry, swimming the Rio Grande or walking through the desert, and many drowned or died of exposure. A ruling that pushes people away from the legal door pushes them toward the deadly routes around it.

The decision lands alongside a string of moves narrowing who can seek protection in the United States. Read together, they leave the right to asylum formally on the books and increasingly out of reach in practice.

What You Can Do Now

Use the letter below to ask your members of Congress to protect the statutory right to seek asylum and oppose any policy that turns people back without a hearing. Two federal courts have already struck down a categorical asylum ban, and Congress wrote the right Mullin narrows.
Call your senators and representative at (202) 224-3121. Tell them metering turns the right to asylum into a right on paper only, and that you want it defended.
Support legal aid at the border. Groups that provide representation change outcomes dramatically, with represented asylum seekers winning relief far more often. Organizations like Al Otro Lado work directly with people turned back at ports of entry.