Supreme Court Lets Trump Revive Border Metering Policy
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- Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to overturn a lower court order that had blocked the "metering" policy limiting how many migrants could apply for asylum each day at U.S. ports of entry
- Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, reasoning that "a guest does not arrive in a house when he knocks on the front door," while Justice Sonia Sotomayor read her dissent from the bench, warning the ruling "extinguishes the light of the torch of the Statue of Liberty"
- Metering was first used under President Barack Obama in 2016 to manage Haitian arrivals at the San Diego–Tijuana crossing, expanded during Trump's first term, and was formally rescinded by President Joe Biden in 2021
- The policy is NOT currently in effect, and the Department of Homeland Security has not said whether it will be revived, though DHS general counsel James Percival called the ruling "an important tool to continue securing our southern border"
- The same day, the Supreme Court also allowed the Trump administration to end deportation protections for migrants fleeing instability and armed conflict, in a separate but related ruling
- Advocacy groups Democracy Forward and Al Otro Lado condemned the decision, with Al Otro Lado's executive director warning it means a "hardening of borders to keep out the most vulnerable" that is "sure to result in many more lives lost"
Why it matters: The 6-3 ruling gives the Trump administration legal cover to reinstate metering, which previously left thousands of migrants camped in unsafe makeshift shelters waiting their turn at border crossings. By defining people stopped by authorities as not yet having "arrived" in the U.S., the conservative majority narrowed the scope of federal asylum-screening requirements, strengthening executive power over border processing while limiting a statutory protection that applies to anyone physically present in the country.
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