A divided appeals court ruled last year that migrants must be allowed to apply for asylum in the U.S. even if they are stopped at the border before they actually enter the U.S.

President Donald Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse this ruling and allow immigration officials to turn away asylum seekers before they get to the border and before they actually apply for asylum.

The case hinges on the court's interpretation of The Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows an “alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States” to apply for asylum.

Trump wants the high court to flip the current interpretation of the law, that migrants are considered "physically present" even if they are on the Mexico side of the border.

Did the migrant "arrive"?

“In ordinary English, a person ‘arrives in’ a country only when he comes within its borders,” Solicitor General John Sauer said in a filing. “An alien thus does not ‘arrive in’ the United States while he is still in Mexico.”

Immigration rights group Al Otro Lado obviously disagreed, according to Breitbart.

“Our immigration laws require the government to inspect and process people seeking asylum at ports of entry and allow them to pursue their legal claims in the United States,” it said in a statement.

“The government’s turnback policy was an illegal scheme to circumvent these requirements by physically blocking asylum seekers arriving at ports of entry and preventing them from crossing the border to seek protection,” Al Otro Lado said.

The group also argued that the turnback policy put families and individuals in jeopardy by forcing them to stay in unsafe conditions in Mexico while they wait for their asylum hearings.

Migrants have been assaulted, kidnapped, and murdered, they said.

Giving up

Most would rather just give up than wait for potentially months or years in such conditions, but isn't that the point?

The vast majority of asylum seekers will be rejected, so letting an unlimited number of migrants into the country to await their hearings doesn't make sense.

That's how we ended up with millions of illegal immigrants in the country under former President Joe Biden, and Trump has pretty much turned all of that around just by adopting a stern attitude and letting migrants know his administration was going to make it hard on them.

Trump definitely has the right idea, and the court will hopefully see it his way.