‘More people will die’: Read Justice Sotomayor’s blistering dissent in Supreme Court’s decision on asylum seekers

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority handed the Trump administration yet another win in the president’s efforts to crackdown on immigration.

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Justices ruled on Thursday to clear the way for the Trump administration to restore a policy of limiting the number of people who can apply for asylum each day, overturning a lower court order blocking its use. It had previously been deployed by both the Obama and Trump administrations to turn back migrants seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border. The decision gives President Trump the chance to go back to the previous policyas he seeks to curb immigration into the US.

, Justice Samuel Alito, a Bush-appointee, said in part that the case hinges on the “ordinary meaning” of if someone “arrives in the United States.” The Justice Department had argued that people stopped by authorities along the US border haven’t yet arrived in the country, so immigration agents don’t have to let them apply for asylum under federal law.

“A guest does not arrive in a house when he knocks on the front door,” Alito wrote.

The ruling invoked a blistering 35-page dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote for the three liberal justices that the “consequences of today’s decision are predictable.”

“More people will die. More people will attempt to cross the border illegally, and some will make it while others will not,” the Obama-appointee said. Sotomayor chose to read her dissent out loud, a rare decision that justices often reserve for instances where they gravely disagree with the majority.

“More people will be forced to walk along the US-Mexico border in dangerous conditions, trying to find a port that will inspect them. More people will turn back and be subjected to violence because of something they cannot or shout not have to change about themselves, such as their race, religion, nationality, or political opinion.”

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Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a separate dissent that the majority’s decision was “unwise” given that the metering policy is not currently in use.

“In its rush to greenlight this retired practice, the majority elides serious justiciability concerns and decides legal issues entirely in the abstract,” Jackson wrote in part. “I respectfully dissent from the Court’s unwise decision to plow ahead nevertheless.”

Reports from inside the courtroom Thursday said Alito, in another unusual move, responded to Sotomayor’s decision to read her dissent out loud and defended the majority’s opinion by noting the policy was used in two presidential administrations.

“I won’t add anything more to that,” Alito said, per the Associated Press.

Metering was first used under the Obama administration and expanded during Trump’s first term. The policy ended in 2020 after greater immigration restrictions were introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, and former president Joe Biden rescinded the policy in 2021.

The Supreme Court’s conservative justices on Thursday also granted the Trump administration the ability to end temporary protections for Haitians and Syrians to live and work legally in the US on humanitarian grounds — another boost to Trump’s federal immigration crackdown. In 2025, the justices ruled that agents can question a person on their immigration status solely based on their race.

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Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.