Supreme Court clears Trump path to revive asylum limits at border

In Mullin v. Al Otro Lado, decided June 25, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that migrants standing on the Mexico side of the border do not “arrive in the United States” by trying, and failing, to set foot there. The ruling allows the Trump administration to bring back a border policy that let officials cap how many asylum applications were processed each day at U.S.-Mexico ports of entry.

That holding erased the lower-court order that had blocked the practice and restored a gatekeeping tool that had kept many asylum seekers from even getting to the first step of the U.S. process. Migrants waiting in Mexico at ports of entry, especially those whose turn comes after the day’s processing limit has been reached, are the first to lose that protection.

The policy at the center of the case was first adopted in November 2016 under the Obama administration, when the Department of Homeland Security set limits on the number of arriving aliens U.S. Customs and Border Protection would inspect each day and allow to apply for asylum. Donald Trump expanded the practice during his first term, and the ruling allows it to be used again at the southern border.

Federal agents at ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border can again use the policy to turn back asylum seekers before they enter the country, keeping their claims from being logged in the U.S. system at all. For migrants stopped on the Mexico side, the decision means the asylum process can be shut down before it reaches immigration court, rather than after a case is filed inside the United States.

The ruling arrives as immigration judges are already seeing their dockets multiply amid the Trump administration’s push to speed up deportations.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.