2026-03-24T11:00:34.135Z / CNN政治
作者：Devan Cole
29分钟前
发布于 2026年3月24日，东部时间上午7:00
移民 最高法院 唐纳德·特朗普 国家安全
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亚利桑那州诺加莱斯的美墨边境墙，摄于2026年2月4日。
Olivier Touron/法新社通过盖蒂图片社
最高法院周二将考虑唐纳德·特朗普总统首个任期内推行的一项政策的合法性，该政策阻止了大量从南部边境抵达的移民启动庇护申请流程。
该政策始于奥巴马政府时期，在特朗普任内正式实施，并于2021年拜登政府上台后被废除，但多年来司法部一直在法庭上为其辩护。特朗普的副检察长D.约翰·索尔最近告诉大法官们，该措施是“解决边境激增问题和防止入境口岸拥挤的关键工具”。
这一案件是最高法院本审理期内涉及特朗普希望大法官们批准的多项有争议移民政策的案件之一。下个月，这九位大法官将审查他去年发布的一项旨在终止出生公民权的行政令，以及他试图终止对海地人和叙利亚人临时驱逐保护的努力。
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官员们尚未公开表示是否计划恢复这项被称为“计量”的庇护政策，该政策在奥巴马政府任期最后几周推出，并于2018年由特朗普完善。
但现任政府在法庭上继续支持该政策，这凸显了其希望将该政策作为阻止边境移民流动的备用手段，因为其他限制性措施在法庭上面临挑战。
“最高法院不应该决定假设性问题，这就是为什么它一开始同意受理这个上诉显得很奇怪，”CNN最高法院分析师、乔治敦大学法学院教授史蒂夫·弗拉迪克表示。
[相关文章：2026年3月23日，美国最高法院在华盛顿特区。Evan Vucci/路透社 最高法院案件辩论要点：可能终止邮寄选票宽限期 8分钟阅读]
“无论特朗普政府是否想要重启这一特定政策，目前该政策并未生效这一事实，应该对最高法院是否有权决定此案构成致命打击，无论结果如何，”他补充道。
根据联邦法律，政府必须处理在入境口岸出现并因在原籍国遭受政治、种族或宗教迫害而寻求庇护的移民。符合这一要求的移民被定义为“在美国境内实际存在或抵达美国的人”。
但“计量”政策使驻扎在边境的联邦特工能够在这些寻求庇护者踏上美国领土之前就将其遣返。该政策旨在帮助官员管理近年来寻求安全避难的移民数量，允许口岸工作人员在确定“有足够空间和资源处理他们”时放行移民。
周二大法官们面临的问题相对直接：在墨西哥一侧被联邦特工拦下的移民是否受要求官员开始对其进行庇护申请流程的法律约束？
政府辩称答案是“否”。
“‘抵达’的普通含义是指进入某个特定地点，而不仅仅是靠近它。在墨西哥被拦下的外国人并未抵达美国，”索尔在法庭文件中写道。“‘抵达美国’这一短语甚至无法合理地、更不用说明确地涵盖在墨西哥的外国人。”
但一个移民权利组织和超过十多个代表挑战该政策的移民群体的个人反驳称，答案是明确的“是”。
“国会在法规中使用现在时态，”政策的法律反对者在周二听证会前提交的书面论点中表示，“表明立法者希望法律的‘规定不仅适用于已经抵达的人，也适用于试图跨越边境的人’。”
“如果国会希望法律仅适用于已经抵达的非公民，它会明确说明这一点，”他们的律师告诉大法官们。
下级法院驳回该政策
2016年奥巴马推出该政策的初步版本时，边境官员正为大量海地寻求庇护者涌入而应接不暇，这些人使他们无法管理这一局面。
但特朗普上任后将该政策完善为更严格的版本，政府被一个名为“另一侧”的为寻求庇护者提供法律服务的非营利组织和13名个人挑战者告上法庭。
加州一名联邦法官裁定该政策非法，并确认了一个受保护的个人群体。
2024年，美国第九巡回上诉法院以分裂的裁决维持了这一判决，认定该政策违反联邦法律。
“‘在美国境内实际存在’这一短语包括在我们境内的非公民，‘抵达美国’这一短语包括在边境遇到官员的人，无论他们站在边境的哪一侧，”法官米歇尔·弗里德兰在多数意见中写道。
值得注意的是，弗里德兰与同为奥巴马任命的法官约翰·欧文斯一同强调，该裁决为政府“在边境履行职责方面保留了广泛的自由和灵活性”。
弗里德兰表示，联邦法律“要求边境官员检查寻求庇护的非公民，而‘计量’政策剥夺了这一职责”。
与过去的联系
近年来，关于管理南部边境寻求庇护者的政策决定频繁变化。
拜登政府的解决方案是让移民使用手机应用程序预约与联邦特工在合法入境口岸的会面。然后他们在等待美国移民官员检查并开始庇护申请流程期间，在边境外停留。
尽管拜登在2021年11月废除了“计量”政策，但他的司法部继续在法庭上为其合法性辩护，告诉第九巡回法院该政策“基于已证明的能力限制是合理的”。
特朗普在去年重返办公室后终止了拜登政府的预约政策，并关闭了边境以阻止寻求庇护者进入。这一决定成为在华盛顿特区联邦法院正在审理的一项法律挑战的核心。
德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校斯特劳斯中心表示，在“计量”政策实施期间，数万名移民无法继续推进庇护申请。
“当海关和边境保护局继续拒绝检查或处理寻求庇护者时，许多被遣返的人发现自己在墨西哥一侧的边境附近居住在临时营地中，”他们在法庭文件中告诉大法官们，“被（海关和边境保护局）遣返的寻求庇护者日益增多，他们在港口附近等待数周乃至数月，没有可靠的食物来源、住所或安全保障。”
他们称，有些人“试图从港口之间非法进入美国，在穿越格兰德河或索诺拉沙漠时死亡”。
这一现实让人联想到二战时期美国拒绝载有近1000名逃离欧洲的犹太难民的“圣路易斯号”轮船的事件。
前身为希伯来移民援助协会（HIAS）的组织在法庭文件中告诉大法官们，“计量”政策“造成了法律上的无人区”，使寻求庇护者的安全面临风险。
“人们在危险的边境城镇陷入困境，无法获得我们法律赋予那些抵达入境口岸并向站在美国领土上的美国官员提出申请的人的权利，”该组织在法庭之友简报中表示，“这是一种炼狱般的处境，就像‘圣路易斯号’乘客所经历的那样，而国会已经消除了对那些抵达入境口岸的人的这种困境：安全可见但无法触及。”
移民 最高法院 唐纳德·特朗普 国家安全
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Immigration: Supreme Court to scrutinize former policy of turning away asylum seekers at southern border | CNN Politics
2026-03-24T11:00:34.135Z / CNN Politics
By Devan Cole
29 min ago
PUBLISHED Mar 24, 2026, 7:00 AM ET
Immigration Supreme Court Donald Trump National security
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The wall at the US-Mexico border is seen in Nogales, Arizona, on February 4, 2026.
Olivier Touron/AFP via Getty Images
The Supreme Court on Tuesday will consider the legality of a policy championed by President Donald Trump during his first term that prevented scores of migrants arriving at the southern border from starting the process of applying for asylum.
The policy was rolled out under President Barack Obama, formalized by Trump and rescinded in 2021 under President Joe Biden, but the Justice Department has continued to defend it in court over the years. Trump’s solicitor general, D. John Sauer, recently told the justices the measure is a “critical tool for addressing border surges and preventing overcrowding at ports of entry.”
The case is one of several before the high court this session testing controversial immigration policies that Trump wants justices to approve. Next month, the nine will review an order he issued last year that sought to end birthright citizenship, as well as his efforts to end temporary deportation protections for Haitians and Syrians.
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Officials have not said publicly whether they plan to revive the asylum policy, known as “metering,” which was introduced during the waning weeks of the Obama administration and fleshed out by Trump in 2018.
But the current administration’s decision to continue backing it in court underscores its desire to keep the policy as a backup avenue to stem the flow of migrants at the border as other restrictive measures face challenges in court.
“The Supreme Court isn’t supposed to decide hypothetical questions, which is why it’s weird that it agreed to take up this appeal in the first place,” said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown University Law Center.
[Related article The US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on March 23, 2026. Evan Vucci/Reuters Takeaways from arguments in the Supreme Court case that could end grace periods for mail-in ballots 8 min read]
“Whether or not the Trump administration wants to restart this particular policy, the fact that it isn’t currently in effect ought to be fatal to the Supreme Court’s power to decide this case, one way or the other,” he added.
Under federal law, the government must process a migrant who presents at a port of entry and is fleeing political, racial or religious persecution in their home country. A migrant covered under that requirement is defined as someone “who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States.”
But the metering policy enabled federal agents stationed at the border to turn back such asylum seekers before they ever stepped foot on US soil. The policy, which aimed to help officials manage the number of migrants seeking safe haven in recent years, gave workers at ports the flexibility to let in migrants if they determined there was “sufficient space and resources to process them.”
The question before the justices on Tuesday is relatively straightforward: Is a migrant who is stopped by federal agents on the Mexican side of the border covered under the law that requires officials to begin passing them through the asylum process?
The administration contends the answer is “no.”
“The ordinary meaning of ‘arrives in’ refers to entering a specified place, not just coming close to it. An alien who is stopped in Mexico does not arrive in the United States,” Sauer wrote in court papers. “The phrase ‘arrives in the United States’ does not even plausibly, much less clearly, cover aliens in Mexico.”
But an immigrant rights group and more than a dozen individuals who represent a class of migrants that challenged the policy have countered that the answer is an unequivocal “yes.”
“Congress’s use of the present tense” in the statute shows that lawmakers wanted the law’s “mandates to apply not only to those who have arrived, but also to those who are attempting to step over the border,” the policy’s legal foes said in written arguments submitted ahead of Tuesday’s hearing.
“If Congress wanted the law to cover only noncitizens who had arrived, it would have said so,” their lawyers told the justices.
Lower courts sided against the policy
When Obama rolled out the first iteration of the policy in 2016, officials at the border were reeling from a surge of Haitian asylum seekers, which had overwhelmed their ability to manage the situation.
But after Trump took office and formalized a more robust version of the policy, the government was taken to court by Al Otro Lado, a nonprofit legal services organization for asylum seekers, and the 13 individual challengers.
A federal judge in California ruled the policy was unlawful and certified a class of individuals to be shielded from it.
In a divided decision in 2024, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that ruling, concluding the policy ran afoul of the federal law.
“The phrase ‘physically present in the United States’ encompasses noncitizens within our borders, and the phrase ‘arrives in the United States’ encompasses those who encounter officials at the border, whichever side of the border they are standing on,” Judge Michelle Friedland wrote in the majority decision.
Notably, Friedland, who was joined by fellow Obama appointee John Owens, stressed that the ruling left the government “with wide latitude and flexibility to carry out its duties at the border.”
Federal laws, Friedland said, “require border officials to inspect noncitizens seeking asylum at the border, and the metering policy withheld that duty.”
A connection to the past
Policy decisions on managing asylum seekers at the southern border have changed frequently in recent years.
Biden’s solution was to have migrants use a phone app to schedule appointments with federal agents at a legal port of entry. They then waited outside the US until they could be inspected by an immigration officer and begin the asylum process.
Though Biden rolled back the metering policy in November 2021, his Justice Department continued defending its legality in court, telling the 9th Circuit that the policy was “reasonably based on demonstrated capacity constraints.”
Trump ended the Biden-era appointment policy after returning to office last year, and he shut down the border for asylum seekers. That decision is at the center of a legal challenge making its way through the federal courts in Washington, DC.
When the metering policy was in place, it frustrated the ability of tens of thousands of migrants to move forward in seeking asylum, according to the Strauss Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
Turning those people back, the policy’s challengers told the high court, “quickly created a humanitarian crisis in Mexico.”
“As CBP continued to refuse to inspect or process asylum seekers, many of those turned away found themselves living in makeshift camps on the Mexican side of the border,” they told the justices in court papers. “The growing bottleneck of asylum seekers turned back by (Customs and Border Patrol) waited near the ports for weeks and then months without reliable food sources, shelter, or safety.”
Some, they said, “attempted instead to enter the United States between ports and died while crossing the Rio Grande or the Sonoran Desert.”
That reality has drawn comparisons to a World War II-era episode during which the US turned away the MS St. Louis, a ship ferrying nearly 1,000 Jewish refugees fleeing Europe in 1939.
HIAS, formerly known as the Hebrew Immigrants Aid Society, told the justices in court papers that the metering policy “creates a legal no man’s land” that puts the safety of asylum seekers at risk.
“People are left in limbo in dangerous border towns, unable to access the process our laws guarantee to those who arrive at a port of entry and present themselves to US officials standing on US soil,” the group said in its friend-of-the-court brief. “It is the kind of purgatory experienced by the St. Louis passengers and that Congress eradicated for those who reach a port of entry: safety visible but unreachable.”
Immigration Supreme Court Donald Trump National security
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