Court: Aliens on the Mexican Side of the Border Must Be Let in If They Say They Want Asylum
9th Circuit declares lawfare against our border, writes insurance policy against a Trump presidency
By George Fishman on October 28, 2024
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last week issued a two-to-one decision in Al Otro Lado vs. Mayorkas that is wrong, troubling, and breathtaking. The court imposes on the federal government — for the first time — an obligation to interview asylum seekers who are still in Mexico. It skips over the statute’s plain meaning, ignores a common-sense understanding of the English language, misapplies a semantic canon, disregards the typical presumption against extraterritoriality, and usurps Congress’s authority to make law. Only the 9th Circuit — which is not a sovereign nation — seems to reject the nearly universal goal of national border security.
Harsh language, to be sure — but not my language. These are the words of the dissenting judge in the case, Ryan Nelson. And Judge Nelson is spot on. For the 9th Circuit has reached the incredible conclusion that an alien “stopped by U.S. officials at the border [on the Mexican side, without even entering U.S. territory] is eligible to apply for asylum [in the United States]”! This decision threatens to send our border/asylum crisis down to a whole new level of the inferno.
The 9th Circuit is seemingly writing an insurance policy against Donald Trump’s election. What its decision means is that even if a new Trump administration is able to restore sanity to our border and prevent mass influxes of migrants from illegally crossing, it doesn’t matter. As long as the migrants reach the Mexican side of the border, they have won. For once the migrants encounter U.S. officials, they can demand to apply for asylum in the U.S. And that means they can enter and remain here — since the 9th Circuit has already concluded in Innovation Law Lab v. Wolf that the Trump administration’s Return to Mexico initiative, returning aliens apprehended along the border back to Mexico to reside during the pendency of their removal/asylum proceedings, is likely “inconsistent” with and “does not comply” with the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). And that means that if they are not continuously detained, they aren’t going to leave the U.S., ever, despite having meritless or fraudulent asylum claims.
As I have previously reported, and the House Committee on Homeland Security’s report on the articles of impeachment against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas later stated in agreement:
https://cis.org/Fishman/Court-Aliens-Mexican-Side-Border-Must-Be-Let-If-They-Say-They-Want-Asylum
