President Donald Trump‘s immigration agenda has notched several key wins as the Supreme Court‘s term draws to a close, but a key loss appears imminent on one of the high court’s final opinion days.
The Supreme Court is wrapping up its 2025-26 term with likely two opinion days beginning Monday, when the justices will issue opinions in the eight outstanding cases, including many of the most closely watched disputes argued before the high court this year.
Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order will be one of those decisions, and it could give the president a key loss a week after the Supreme Court handed him three major immigration wins.
‘Temporary’ means temporary, Supreme Court says
On Thursday, the high court released two major opinions in immigration cases that help Trump’s aggressive immigration agenda. In Mullin v. Doe, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to allow the Trump administration to end temporary protected status for Haiti and Syria, and ruled that the determination to end TPS by the homeland security secretary cannot be legally challenged. The ruling penned by Justice Samuel Alito opens the door for the administration to end TPS for people from various other countries, allowing the status to be stripped by the administration from the more than 1 million foreign nationals estimated to have TPS.
While TPS was intended by Congress to be a temporary humanitarian protection, various TPS designations have been endlessly extended by previous administrations, lasting decades in some cases.
The Trump administration has aggressively attempted to end TPS for most of the countries that currently have it, arguing the emergencies or circumstances that triggered the designations are no longer severe enough to warrant the deportation protections and that the indefinite extensions have become a form of blanket amnesty that runs counter to the purpose of the program. The Supreme Court’s ruling clears the way for the administration to end TPS without the intensive legal pushback that has plagued it for over a year.
Reining in asylum claims
The other major immigration win for the Trump administration on Thursday came in Mullin v. Al Otro Lado, where the high court ruled 6-3 that an asylum-seeker physically blocked from reaching U.S. territory cannot legally claim asylum from the Mexico side of the border. The case dealt with the question of whether an asylum-seeker at the border has arrived “in the United States” even if he or she is stopped on the Mexican side of the border. In his majority opinion, Alito found the answer was “no.”
“The wisdom of the policy of metering alien arrivals at the southern border is not before us. We decide only that an alien standing in Mexico does not ‘arriv[e] in the United States.’ The [Immigration and Nationality Act] neither entitles such an alien to apply for asylum nor requires an immigration officer to inspect him,” Alito wrote.
The case centered on the “metering” policy at the border to prevent migrant surges from overwhelming federal immigration officials. The policy was formalized by the first Trump administration but revoked by the Biden administration and has yet to be reinstated. With the Supreme Court’s ruling, the administration could reinstate the policy with this key question resolved.
The two wins on Thursday came two days after the Supreme Court handed immigration officials a win on denying legal permanent residents with criminal backgrounds entry back into the United States, with its 6-3 ruling in Blanche v. Lau. The ruling, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, will make it easier for immigration officials to deny entry and remove criminal immigrants, a key part of the president’s aggressive immigration agenda.
While the administration had a successful week on immigration at the Supreme Court, the high court’s final immigration ruling — on Trump’s birthright citizenship order — appears likely to be a major setback for the president. Trump himself has predicted his administration will “probably” lose the case, blaming a “rigged” judiciary in May for the anticipated outcome.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara on April 1, and the president’s executive order appeared to get a chilly reception during the two-and-a-half-hour arguments. The case deals with Trump’s January 2025 executive order stating that birthright citizenship does not extend to children born in the U.S. to parents who are both in the country illegally or on a temporary basis, such as on a visa. The executive order faced a litany of lawsuits before making its way to the Supreme Court this term.
During oral arguments, the Justice Department faced several tough questions from a highly skeptical Supreme Court bench. Early in the arguments, Chief Justice John Roberts questioned the DOJ’s use of “quirky” examples of people excluded from birthright citizenship, such as the children of foreign diplomats, to justify excluding broad groups of people, such as illegal immigrants. The only justice who appeared somewhat open to the DOJ’s arguments was Alito, as Trump watched on from the public gallery in a rare public appearance of a president at Supreme Court arguments.
THE MAJOR SUPREME COURT DECISIONS REMAINING FOR THIS TERM
While Supreme Court oral arguments do not always give a correct indication of how the high court will rule in a case, it typically illustrates which side has the tougher challenge in convincing the justices. The administration appeared to be facing an uphill battle convincing nearly all of the justices during the lengthy hearing earlier this year.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to issue opinions at 10 a.m. on Monday and will likely add an additional opinion day this week to conclude its term. Once the current term has concluded, the high court will be out until oral arguments begin for the next term on Oct. 5.