Migrant crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border surged into the millions during President Joe Biden’s first three years in office, but they have nearly ceased in the last 18 months.
asserted
they → surge → months
President Trump says it’s all because of the crackdown on asylum seekers he launched by executive proclamation on his first day in office.
asserted
he → say → office
“As it turned out, we didn’t need legislation,” he boasted in December.
asserted
he → turn → December
“We just needed a new president.”
asserted
We → need → president
You can’t argue with success: encounters between the border patrol and migrants peaked at 250,000 in December 2023; by December 2024, the number was a still-significant 47,000.
asserted
number → argue → December
Under Trump it has plunged further, to well below 10,000 a month—the lowest rate since the early 1960s.
asserted
it → plunge → 1960s
There’s just one little problem: Trump’s policy might not be legal.
uncertain
policy → ’ → ?
In fact, federal courts have repeatedly ruled that it is not, finding that the president had no authority under current immigration statutes to issue his proclamation.
asserted
president → rule → proclamation
According to these judges, he did, in fact, need new legislation.
uncertain
he → accord → legislation
This is potentially a very big deal, though the rulings have drawn little media coverage—perhaps because they have been stayed pending the Trump administration’s appeals.
asserted
they → draw → appeals
But now everyone needs to start paying attention: Trump’s Solicitor General, John D. Sauer, has asked the Supreme Court to take up the case and salvage what he called “the Administration’s single most effective policy in resolving a border crisis.”
asserted
he → need → crisis
The justices have no risk-free option, legally or politically.
asserted
justices → have → option
They can uphold the lower courts’ rulings that the policy was illegal, possibly triggering a new rush of migrants to the border—or even defiance from a furious Trump.
uncertain
policy → uphold → Trump
Or the justices can ratify Trump’s policy and its bold assertion of executive authority.
asserted
justices → ratify → authority
This would not only truncate the United States’ commitment to asylum but warp the balance of power between the president and Congress.
asserted
This → truncate → president
But whatever the ultimate outcome, this is already a case study in the dysfunction bred by the chronic failure of a polarized Congress to update immigration laws, which were last significantly revised in 1996.
asserted
which → breed → 1996
The laws are not suited to a new reality in which millions of people, taking advantage of revolutions in communications and transportation, can move toward the border, drawn by the possibility of applying for asylum—and stay in the United States for years as an overwhelmed bureaucracy tries to adjudicate their claims.
uncertain
bureaucracy → take → claims
As a legal matter, the issues before the Supreme Court are analogous to those they faced earlier this year when they ruled on a challenge to some of Trump’s tariffs.
asserted
they → face → tariffs
Now, as then, he stands accused of claiming power that neither the Constitution nor the relevant statutes actually give him.
asserted
Constitution → accuse → him
The case centers on Trump’s January 20, 2025 proclamation, which essentially blocked irregular border-crossers from seeking any form of continued presence in the United States, including asylum.
asserted
which → center → asylum
It also provided for their summary expulsion.
asserted
It → provide → expulsion
The administration says this is lawful under a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which empowers the president to “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens” whose admission “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”
asserted
admission → say → States
The proclamation thus identifies a class of “alien[s] engaged in the invasion across the southern border” and suspends their entry indefinitely.
asserted
proclamation → identify → entry
It then authorizes a new fast-track removal process for them—bypassing the ones laid out in the INA, which allow even excludable aliens some possibility to remain in the United States.
asserted
which → authorize → States
The administration’s theory, expressed in its Supreme Court petition, is that “the power to exclude must include the power to expel if the former is to have any meaningful force.”
asserted
former → express → force
As for asylum, people have an absolute right to apply for it under the INA, even if they are in the United States illegally.
asserted
they → have → States
But that same law says granting asylum, even to those who qualify, is a matter of pure executive discretion.
asserted
who → say → discretion
Trump exercised that discretion to issue a preemptive denial of asylum to all unauthorized border crossers in his proclamation.
asserted
Trump → exercise → proclamation
The government argues it doesn’t have to consider them before expelling people.
asserted
it → argue → people
It’s a creative interpretation of the law.
asserted
It → ’ → law
Just like the tariffs case, the administration discerned sweeping delegations of power to the president lurking in statutes that had never been read that way before.
asserted
that → discern → statutes
And last year, a district judge ruled that while the president does have broad authority to bar aliens from the country, he cannot use it to bypass the procedures Congress established for removing people who have already entered.
asserted
who → rule → people
In April, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit mostly agreed.
asserted
panel → agree → Circuit
“Congress did not intend to grant the Executive the expansive removal authority it asserts,” Judge J. Michelle Childs wrote.
asserted
Childs → intend → authority
Nor, she added, does it allow him to deny asylum preemptively.
asserted
him → add → asylum
What’s unlike the tariffs case, though, is the political context.
asserted
’s → ’ → case
The president imposed tariffs in the teeth of widespread opposition that included many businesses and some Republicans.
asserted
that → impose → businesses
By contrast, there was broad agreement in 2025 that the situation at the southern border presented a real problem, and that security needed to be enhanced, even though the crossing numbers had fallen in the last year of Biden’s term.
asserted
numbers → be → term
(In fact, Biden himself resorted to executive action to stem the flow, which the courts also ruled against in 2025 once he was out of office and Trump’s policy had superseded his.
asserted
policy → resort → his
In theory, the justices could refuse to hear the administration’s appeal; that would allow the D.C. Circuit ruling to take effect, upending Trump’s border policy.
uncertain
ruling → refuse → policy
…and 14 more, not listed.
The Aporia
