Supreme Court Hands Trump Two Immigration Victories, Curtailing Judicial Review of TPS and Asylum Access

The Supreme Court issued a pair of 6-3 decisions on June 25, 2026, that substantially expand executive authority over immigration enforcement and sharply narrow the courts' role in reviewing those decisions. In the first case, *Mullin v. Doe*, consolidated with *Trump v. Miot*, the Court cleared the way for the Department of Homeland Security to terminate Temporary Protected Status for approximately 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians living in the United States ^[1][5]. In the second, *Mullin v. Al Otro Lado*, the Court held that migrants physically present in Mexico at the U.S.-Mexico border do not "arrive in" the United States within the meaning of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, and therefore hold no statutory right to apply for asylum ^[4][12].

The TPS litigation originated in 2025, when then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced the termination of TPS designations for both countries, concluding that conditions no longer met the statutory threshold under 8 U.S.C. §1254a ^[2][3]. Congress created TPS in 1990 as a short-term humanitarian protection for nationals of countries experiencing armed conflict, natural disaster, or other extraordinary conditions. Haiti's designation dates to 2010, following a catastrophic earthquake, and Syria's to 2012, following the Assad government's violent suppression of civilian protests ^[3]. Federal judges in the District of Columbia and the Southern District of New York separately blocked the terminations, and the D.C. and Second Circuits declined to lift those stays ^[2]. The government petitioned the Supreme Court, which granted certiorari before judgment, heard oral arguments April 29, 2026, and reversed the lower courts ^[2].

Writing for the six-justice conservative majority, Justice Samuel Alito held that the TPS statute's judicial-review bar, codified at 8 U.S.C. §1254a(b)(5)(A), forecloses court review of non-constitutional challenges to the Secretary's termination decisions ^[2][5]. The majority also found that plaintiffs from Haiti were unlikely to prevail on their equal protection claim, concluding that cited statements from Trump administration officials, while contested, were "insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti's TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people" ^[7]. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett joined the majority ^[4]. In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan argued that the statutory bar does not reach procedural compliance claims, and that racial considerations had impermissibly infected the Haiti determination ^[5][7]. The decision does not resolve whether Noem followed the required procedural steps before terminating either designation; the majority's holding insulates that question from judicial scrutiny entirely ^[10].

The practical consequence of *Mullin v. Doe* extends well beyond the two named countries. The Trump administration has moved to terminate TPS for most of the roughly 17 countries whose nationals currently hold the status, including El Salvador, Ukraine, Venezuela, and Yemen, with many of those terminations pending in separate court proceedings ^[4]. The Court's ruling in this case follows two earlier emergency orders in which it blocked a San Francisco district court from reinstating TPS for Venezuelan nationals, decisions the government cited as controlling precedent in the Haiti and Syria litigation ^[1]. As of March 2025, approximately 1.3 million people from 17 countries held TPS in some form, meaning the judicial-review bar announced in *Mullin* could affect the vast majority of that population if additional terminations survive the same analysis ^[1][4].

In *Mullin v. Al Otro Lado*, argued March 24, 2026, the Court confronted a statutory question arising from DHS's "metering" policy, under which Customs and Border Protection agents stationed at southern border ports of entry cap the daily number of asylum applicants and turn back those who have not yet crossed ^[12]. A class action filed in the Southern District of California in 2017 by asylum seekers and immigration advocacy organization Al Otro Lado challenged the policy as a violation of the INA's inspection and asylum provisions ^[12]. The district court certified a class and ruled for the plaintiffs; a divided Ninth Circuit panel affirmed ^[8]. Alito, again writing for the 6-3 majority, held that the relevant INA provisions, 8 U.S.C. §§1158(a)(1) and 1225(a)(1), confer rights only upon persons who have physically entered the United States, not on those who remain on the Mexican side of the border ^[11][12]. The ruling revives the legal viability of metering as a border management tool and overturns the Ninth Circuit's finding that CBP had an affirmative obligation to process applicants who present themselves at a port of entry ^[10]. Metering originated during the Obama administration in 2016 and was expanded to all southern border crossings during Trump's first term ^[13]. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, arguing that Congress designed the asylum statutes in part as a response to the post-World War II international framework protecting refugees, and that the majority's construction abandons that purpose [POLITICO]. In an uncommon exchange from the bench, Justice Alito publicly noted his surprise that Sotomayor read her dissent aloud, and observed that the underlying policy had been employed by administrations of both parties ^[8].

Together, the two decisions mark the Court's most consequential consolidation of executive immigration authority in the current term. The TPS ruling insulates DHS termination decisions from statutory challenge while leaving open, narrowly, the possibility of future constitutional litigation. The asylum ruling removes a circuit-level obstacle to border metering and could accelerate CBP's use of the practice if migration volumes increase. Both cases are decided on the final days of the October Term 2025.