Supreme Court Considers Fate of Defunct Border Turnback Policy

The US Supreme Court appeared divided over what, if anything, to do about a defunct government policy that allowed immigration officers to stop some asylum seekers before reaching the southern border.

The Trump administration says the policy, known as “metering,” is a critical tool for dealing with surges at the border with Mexico. The government asked the justices to greenlight its use in the future, arguing it complies with a requirement in the Immigration and Nationality Act that any asylum seeker who “arrives in” the United States have their petition inspected and processed.

“You can’t arrive in the United States while you’re still standing in Mexico,” Vivek Suri, an assistant to the solicitor general, said during oral arguments Tuesday. “That should be the end of this case.”

Several justices appeared unconvinced. Suri immediately faced a barrage of questioning from the bench, with justices at times talking over one another to interrogate him about how the policy complies with American and international refugee laws.

“I’m not sure how you can say we’re not violating our treaty obligations with your position,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.

Under the policy, first adopted in 2016 by Barack Obama’s administration, Customs and Border Protection officers were stationed on the US side of the border to stop asylum seekers from entering the country when ports of entry were at capacity. The practice continued during Donald Trump’s first term before being rescinded by Joe Biden.

In 2017, the immigration rights organization Al Otro Lado sued. A divided panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit blocked the policy in 2024—at that point long rescinded—holding that metering violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The full court later declined to rehear the case en banc over dissents from more than a dozen judges.

Critical to the case is what it means to “arrive in” the United States. Kelsi Corkran, the Supreme Court director at Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy & Protection who argued the case on behalf of Al Otro Lado, said for decades arriving in the US simply meant making it to a port of entry.

Questioning on that issue bogged down Tuesday’s argument, however, with justices repeatedly pressing her on hypotheticals about whether an asylum seeker who reached the border wall, or crossed the Rio Grande, or was last in a line waiting to enter a port of entry, had “arrived” in the country.

“This seems very artificial,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh interjected after a lengthy back-and-forth between Corkran and other justices. Kavanaugh said wherever the line was drawn, if the metering policy were allowed to resume, the government would presumably stop asylum-seekers short of it.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson advocated for a third way out: either dismissing the case as moot, since the policy has been rescinded and the Trump administration says it has no immediate plans to resume it, or vacating lower courts’ decisions along the same reasoning.

“I don’t understand what we are doing other than sort of advising the government,” Jackson said.

Immigration enforcement has been a top priority of the Trump administration. Suri said if allowed, the government would likely seek to resume the metering policy.

A ruling allowing metering to resume could drastically reduce the number of migrants who are able to make their asylum petitions. That number grew to more than 400,000 petitions a year during the Biden administration, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The justices are expected to rule by July.

The case is Kristi Noem v. Al Otro Lado, U.S., No. 25-5, argued 3/24/26.