Mullin v. Al Otro Lado

Majority — Alito

Joined by: Roberts, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett

The majority held that the ordinary meaning of "arrives in the United States" requires a person to physically enter U.S. territory — just as a running back does not "arrive in" the end zone when tackled at the one-yard line, a noncitizen does not "arrive in" the United States while still standing in Mexico. The Court found that other parts of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) separately refer to both actual entry and attempted entry, and the absence of "attempted entry" language in the two key provisions signals that Congress deliberately chose not to cover people who try but fail to cross. The Court also noted that Congress previously used the phrase "at a land border or port of entry" in an earlier version of the asylum statute, and its 1996 decision to replace that phrase with "arrives in the United States" suggests the newer language requires physical presence inside the country. Even if some redundancy results from this reading — since anyone who "arrives in" the U.S. is also "physically present" there — the Court said it would rather accept some overlap than adopt an interpretation that contradicts the ordinary meaning of words. Finally, the Court applied the presumption against extraterritoriality — a legal rule that U.S. laws are assumed not to apply outside U.S. borders unless Congress clearly says so — to further support reading the statute as covering only conduct on the U.S. side of the border.

Dissent reasoning

The principal dissent, written by Justice Sotomayor, argued that the majority's interpretation fixates on a single word — "in" — while ignoring the broader statutory context, history, and longstanding executive branch practice. The dissent contended that the phrase "arrives in the United States" naturally covers noncitizens who are in the process of arriving, such as those who walk up to a port of entry and present themselves to a border official, because that is the moment when they can actually seek admission. The dissent pointed out that the majority's reading renders the "arrives in" clause entirely superfluous, since anyone who has physically crossed the border is already "physically present in the United States" — a category the statute covers separately — making the "arrives in" clause do no independent work. The dissent also argued that the majority's rule creates a perverse incentive: noncitizens who cross the border illegally can apply for asylum, while those who follow the law and wait at a port of entry can be turned away indefinitely with no recourse. Finally, the dissent reviewed the legislative history of both the inspection mandate and the asylum statute, concluding that Congress has required inspection of noncitizens arriving at ports since 1917 and that the 1996 amendments were not intended to strip protections from those who had not yet stepped across the border. Justice Jackson filed a separate dissent arguing the case should not have been decided at all, because the metering policy was rescinded years ago and the Court was effectively issuing an advisory opinion on a retired policy without a concrete factual record.