SCOTUS in Mullin v. Al Otro Lado lets Trump turn away asylum-seekers metered at the border, 6-3

On June 25, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Mullin v. Al Otro Lado that migrants “metered” on the Mexican side of the U.S. border have not “arrived in the United States” and therefore cannot apply for asylum, validating the practice of indefinite turnbacks at ports of entry. The decision broke along ideological lines, with Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson dissenting. It was one of two 6-3 immigration rulings the Court handed the Trump administration that day (the companion case, Mullin v. Doe, stripped judicial review from TPS terminations). The ruling hands DHS the legal authority to deny asylum access to anyone physically stopped before crossing, gutting the statutory right to seek protection for the population the administration most wants to exclude.

The decision is the asylum-access keystone of the deportation pipeline: by relocating the legal threshold of “arrival” to the far side of the border, the Court lets the executive extinguish the asylum claim before it can be filed, sidestepping the immigration-court process the administration has separately tried to control (see 2025-12-19–scotus-rejects-trump-bid-to-silence-immigration-judges). It pairs with the same-day TPS ruling to compress both ends of the protected-status spectrum — those seeking entry and those already lawfully present — and continues the Roberts Court’s pattern of fast-tracking Trump immigration priorities. Due-process challenges to specific turnbacks may survive, but the statutory asylum-at-the-border avenue is now foreclosed.