Supreme Court Poised To Revisit Obama-Era Asylum Policy At Southern Border

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take another look at a major immigration dispute involving a border policy first used during the Obama administration and later formalized under President Donald Trump’s first term.

At issue is a practice known as “metering,” which allowed federal officials to limit how many asylum-seekers could enter the United States through ports of entry along the southern border.

The Biden administration ended the policy, but President Trump’s administration has asked the justices to review a Ninth Circuit ruling that declared the practice unlawful.

The case could have major implications for executive authority, border control, and the future of asylum processing.

Trump Administration Defends Border Authority

The Trump administration has argued that courts should not strip the political branches of their constitutional power to manage the border.

A few months ago, U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer asserted, “The Constitution delegates the power to regulate the border to the political branches, not the judiciary.”

Sauer said the lower court ruling interferes with Congress’s ability to shape asylum law and weakens the executive branch’s power to enforce immigration policy at the border.

According to the administration, the Ninth Circuit’s reasoning could make it harder for border officials to manage migrant flow and maintain orderly processing.

Sauer asserted, “Based on the reasoning of the decision below, [Customs and Border Patrol] was barred from impeding the entry of an individual who presented themselves at the border without a prior appointment.”

“An alien may claim to have arrived ‘in the United States,’ thereby requiring governmental inspection and processing of his asylum application, which would allow him to bypass the queue,” Sauer added.

“The asylum-seekers challenged the government’s petition, claiming that the appellate court’s ruling applied exclusively to a particular cohort of migrants,” Sauer continued.

The administration has warned that the ruling could endanger other border management tools, including appointment-based systems such as the Biden-era CBP One application.

The Origins Of Metering

The controversy traces back to 2016, when the Obama administration responded to a rise in Haitian asylum-seekers arriving at the San Ysidro port of entry in Southern California.

At the time, border agents were directed to turn away newly arriving migrants when ports of entry were overwhelmed.

In 2018, the Department of Homeland Security formally issued “metering guidance” for ports along the southern border.

The policy instructed border officials to identify potential asylum-seekers and prevent them from immediately entering U.S. territory when processing capacity was limited.

In 2019, during President Trump’s first term, the administration added another major restriction. Migrants who passed through one or more countries before reaching the United States were generally barred from asylum unless they had first sought protection in a transit country.

The policy was designed to discourage abuse of the asylum system and restore order at the border.

Lower Courts Side With Asylum-Seekers

A lower court later certified a class of asylum-seekers who arrived before the 2019 transit rule took effect.

The court issued an injunction allowing some claims that had previously been rejected under that rule to move forward.

Although the Biden administration repealed the metering policy in 2021 and the transit rule was later revoked in 2023, the legal battle continued.

In 2022, the lower court issued a final judgment and permanent injunction preventing the government from applying those asylum restrictions to the certified group.

The Ninth Circuit then upheld relief for the asylum-seekers, rejecting the government’s argument that migrants who had not yet entered U.S. territory were not unlawfully denied access to asylum.

That decision is now before the Supreme Court.

Immigrant Rights Group Prepares Defense

The lawsuit was brought by the nonprofit immigrant rights organization Al Otro Lado and 13 asylum-seekers in 2017.

They support the Ninth Circuit’s ruling and are expected to defend it before the justices.

“The government’s turnback policy represented an illegal tactic to circumvent these obligations by physically impeding asylum-seekers at ports of entry and obstructing their access to cross the border for protection,” asserted attorneys for Al Otro Lado and the asylum-seekers.

“Vulnerable families, children, and adults fleeing persecution were abandoned in perilous situations, facing violent assaults, abduction, and death,” Lado claimed.

For conservatives, the case raises a broader constitutional question: whether elected branches have the authority to secure the nation’s borders, or whether unelected judges can impose policies that limit the government’s ability to manage immigration in real time.

With President Trump again pressing for stronger border enforcement, the Supreme Court’s decision could become one of the most important immigration rulings of his second term.