US SC sides with Trump in asylum-processing case

Case involves asylum 'metering' policy ended by Biden

WASHINGTON:

The US Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a victory on Thursday by backing the federal government's authority to turn away asylum seekers when officials deem U.S.-Mexico border crossings too overburdened to handle additional claims.

The court, in a 6-3 ruling powered by its conservative justices, overturned a lower court's finding that the policy violated federal law. The Republican president's administration has said it may seek to revive the policy, known as "metering," after it was dropped by Trump's Democratic predecessor Joe Biden.

The ruling was one of two in immigration-related cases issued by the court on Thursday backing Trump.

A dissent by the court's three liberals in the asylum case prompted an unusual impromptu rebuke from conservative Justice Samuel Alito, who authored Thursday's ruling.

The metering policy allowed U.S. immigration officials to stop asylum seekers at the border and indefinitely decline to process their claims. It is separate from a sweeping policy to deny entry to asylum seekers at the border that Trump announced after returning to the presidency last year. That policy also faces an ongoing legal challenge.

Under U.S. law, a migrant who "arrives in the United States" may apply for asylum and must be inspected by a federal immigration official. The legal issue in the current case is whether asylum seekers who are stopped on the Mexican side of the border have arrived in the United States.