Supreme Court Blockbuster as Former President Barack Obama Investigation Takes WILD Turn as SCOTUS Likely To Revive Obama...
WASHINGTON, D.C. — May 1, 2026
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review a longstanding immigration policy known as “metering,” which allowed border agents to limit the number of asylum seekers permitted to enter at official ports of entry along the southern border.
The case stems from a Ninth Circuit ruling that deemed the policy unlawful. The Trump administration had asked the justices to examine the decision, arguing that the Constitution assigns border regulation authority to the political branches rather than the judiciary. U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer stated that the lower court’s ruling improperly undermines Congress’s authority to establish asylum policy and encroaches on the executive branch’s power to regulate the nation’s borders.
The policy was first implemented by the Obama administration in 2016 in response to a surge of Haitian asylum seekers at the San Ysidro port of entry in Southern California. Border agents were instructed to turn away newly arriving migrants without prior appointments. The Department of Homeland Security formalized the guidance in 2018, applying it to all southern border ports.
The Biden administration terminated the practice. The Trump administration now seeks to maintain flexibility as part of its broader immigration enforcement efforts. The nonprofit immigrant rights organization Al Otro Lado, along with 13 asylum seekers who filed the original 2017 lawsuit, defended the Ninth Circuit’s ruling and plan to uphold it before the Supreme Court. Their attorneys argued that the policy unlawfully blocked asylum seekers at ports of entry, leaving families, children, and adults in dangerous conditions where they faced violence, abduction, or death.
Sauer countered that, under the lower court’s logic, Customs and Border Protection would be prohibited from turning away any individual who arrives at the border without an appointment. He noted that an alien could claim arrival “in the United States,” triggering mandatory inspection and processing of an asylum application, effectively allowing the person to bypass the queue.
The asylum seekers’ attorneys responded that the appellate court’s decision applied only to a specific group of migrants and that the current administration’s border policies are subject to separate legal challenges that do not hinge on the issue raised in this petition. They described any ruling on the matter as potentially amounting to an advisory opinion.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the Supreme Court’s decision to hear the appeal. The White House directed inquiries about the potential reinstatement of the metering policy to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not respond.
The Immigration and Nationality Act provides that any individual in the United States, regardless of location, has the right to apply for asylum if they can establish a well-founded fear of persecution in their home country.
A lower court certified a class for asylum seekers who arrived before the Trump-era transit rule and issued an injunction reinstating claims previously denied under the 2019 policy. The class advanced after the Biden administration ended metering in 2021 and ultimately rescinded the transit rule in 2023. In 2022, the lower court issued a permanent injunction barring the government from enforcing the asylum prohibitions against that group.
May you like
The Trump administration urged the Supreme Court to reverse the ruling, arguing that alternative tools, such as the Biden-era CBP One app for scheduling asylum appointments, could be placed at risk. The case is expected to be argued in the coming term, with a decision likely by the end of the current Supreme Court session.
The outcome could have significant implications for how the United States manages asylum claims at the southern border and the balance of authority between the executive branch and the courts in immigration enforcement. Both the Trump and Biden administrations have faced legal challenges over border policies, reflecting the ongoing partisan and legal debates surrounding immigration.
