Supreme Court Asylum Ruling Latest Sign Judiciary Is Not the Brake on the Trump Administration that Immigration-Rights Activists Sought
September 25, 2019
Policy Beat
By Muzaffar Chishti and Jessica Bolter
In the latest example of the Supreme Court's acceptance of executive authority in immigration policy, the justices on September 11 declined to stay a new Trump administration rule that bars asylum for nearly all migrants who transit through another country before reaching the U.S.-Mexico border. The unsigned opinion offers the most recent notice that those challenging the administration’s immigration agenda, in this case arguably the most significant change in U.S. asylum policy since the modern asylum system was established in 1980, cannot count on the federal judiciary as an automatic brake.
In combination with other actions—including the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), under which more than 40,000 migrants have been returned to Mexico to await U.S. immigration court hearings, a June agreement that has resulted in Mexico both accepting more migrants under MPP and beefing up its own enforcement efforts, and recent “asylum cooperation†agreements with Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras—the administration has dramatically reset the policy landscape on asylum.
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/supreme-court-not-brake-trump-administration-immigration-actions