WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed Friday to review President Donald Trump’s southern border asylum ban, a pillar of the Republican president’s wide-ranging crackdown on immigration.
Trump administration asks judges to overturn lower court decisions which ruled that it was illegal to block asylum requests following an executive order calling the situation at the southern border an “invasion.” The suit is the latest in a series of immigration cases brought to the High Court.
Federal law allows people ask for asylum if they fear persecution in their home country, regardless of how they arrived in the United States
At the same time, it also lets the executive branch decide whether people receive asylum. The Trump administration says it can categorically deny asylum to migrants covered by this order and should not have to accept applications intended to be rejected.
Federal prosecutors say years-long processing delays previously contributed to a major influx of migrants at the southern border, as many of them were released into the country pending a decision.
“Since the proclamation took effect, border crossings have decreased by 93 percent, falling to the lowest levels since the 1960s,” wrote Solicitor General D. John Sauer. The executive order was the “most important factor in the president’s success at the border,” Department of Homeland Security General Counsel James Percival said in a social media post.
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union and several immigration rights groups counter that border crossings were already declining before Trump took office.
They say his executive order is an illegal attempt to “invent by executive order a new deportation system that eviscerates” legal protections intended to protect people fleeing danger in their home countries.
The executive branch decides whether to grant asylum, which allows people to live and work legally in the United States. But those decisions are supposed to be made on an individual basis, and the law doesn’t allow the administration to unilaterally block people from applying, immigration attorneys say.
“The plaintiffs in this case fled persecution and torture, including political imprisonment and threats from the Taliban,” said Keren Zwick, executive director of the National Immigrant Justice Center. “Yet the Trump administration has refused to honor its obligation to consider them as asylum seekers. »
The ban was part of a series of immigration restrictions imposed by Trump upon his return to office in 2025. It remained in effect during the litigation.
The Supreme Court is expected to hear the case in the spring and issue a decision by the end of June.
This is the third major immigration case the High Court will hear this term. Judges will also decide whether people can be quickly expelled to countries other than their country of origin and whether immigrants can be detained indefinitely during eviction proceedings.
The justices decided another asylum case in favor of the administration earlier this year, open the way The Trump administration could potentially revive a “counting” policy that has been used to turn away immigrants at the border in years past.
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