DOJ accuses courts of undercutting executive power in high-stakes Supreme Court border case
The Department of Justice will argue Tuesday that lower courts are undermining the federal government’s ability to manage the southern border in a closely watched Supreme Court case about how...
By Fox News · Fox News
The Department of Justice will argue Tuesday that lower courts are undermining the federal government’s ability to manage the southern border in a closely watched Supreme Court case about how migrants make asylum claims. DOJ lawyers wrote in court papers ahead of the arguments that an appeals court was wrong to restrict the government’s ability to limit how it processes migrants into the country. The lawyers said the ruling stripped the executive branch of a necessary tool, first used during the Obama administration, to respond to surges of illegal migration, which the Trump administration has sought to curb after officials encountered more than 10 million migrants at the border during the Biden administration. "Administrations of both major parties have opposed the decision, which deprives the Executive Branch of a critical tool for addressing border surges and preventing overcrowding at ports of entry," the DOJ lawyers wrote. "This Court should reverse." The case, Noem v. Al Otro Lado, centers on whether migrants who are stopped on the Mexican side of the U.S.–Mexico border can be treated as having "arrived in the United States" under the Immigration and Nationality Act. If they can be designated as having arrived in the country, they would be entitled to apply for asylum, which would require border officials to process their asylum claims. USCIS HALTS ‘ALL ASYLUM DECISIONS’ AFTER DC SHOOTING OF NATIONAL GUARD MEMBERS The DOJ lawyers, led by Solicitor General John Sauer, argued that the immigration law’s language was clear. "In ordinary English, a person ‘arrives in’ a country only when he comes within its borders," they wrote. "A person does not ‘arrive in the United States’ if he is stopped in Mexico." BORDER CROSSINGS PLUMMET TO HISTORIC LOWS; TRUMP'S ENFORCEMENT POLICIES YIELD BIG RESULTS The case stems from a lawsuit brought in 2017 by the immigrant rights group Al Otro Lado and more than a dozen unnamed asylum seekers. The plaintiffs challenged the practice…