New Rule: INA “Arrives in the United States” (8 U. S. C. §§ 1158(a)(1), 1225(a)(1)) Means Physical Entry Across the Border, Not Presence at the Border in Mexico

Precedents Cited (and Their Role)

• Chafin v. Chafin, 568 U. S. 165:
  Cited to support the Court’s conclusion that the case remained live because reversal would provide “effectual relief.” This anchored the majority’s rejection of mootness where an extant declaratory judgment continued to bind the government within the Ninth Circuit.
• West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U. S. 697:
  Used (in the majority’s mootness footnote) to articulate the demanding standard for mootness via voluntary cessation—whether it is “absolutely clear” the challenged practice will not recur. The government’s stated desire to retain metering as a tool kept the controversy alive.
• Keene Corp. v. United States, 508 U. S. 200 (quoting Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16):
  Central to the majority’s textual inference from statutory drafting: when Congress uses “attempt” language in some provisions but omits it in others, courts should treat that omission as intentional. That inference supported rejecting respondents’ “attempted arrival” theory.
• National Assn. of Mfrs. v. Department of Defense, 583 U. S. 109:
  Invoked to reinforce the principle that express inclusions/exclusions matter—bolstering the majority’s contextual comparison across INA provisions that do mention “attempts” or “near a land border.”
• Knight v. Commissioner, 552 U. S. 181:
  Used for the interpretive move that Congress’s failure to choose “readily available” alternative wording (“arrives at,” “near,” etc.) can support an ordinary-meaning reading of the chosen text.
• Van Buren v. United States, 593 U. S. 374:
  Cited for the presumption that statutory amendments are meant to have “real and substantial effect,” used to support the majority’s reading that Congress’s 1996 change from “at a land border or port of entry” to “arrives in the United States” signaled a shift toward requiring U.S. presence.
• Microsoft Corp. v. i4i Ltd. Partnership, 564 U. S. 91; Freeman v. Quicken Loans, Inc., 566 U. S. 624; Lorenzo v. SEC, 587 U. S. 71; United States v. Atlantic Research Corp., 551 U. S. 128:
  These cases collectively supplied the doctrinal framework limiting the canon against surplusage. The majority used them to explain why partial redundancy in §1158(a)(1) (“arrives in” plus “physically present”) is not dispositive when ordinary meaning and statutory context point the other way.
• United States Postal Service v. Konan, 607 U. S. 391:
  Quoted to emphasize the “cardinal canon” that legislatures mean what they say—deployed to subordinate anti-surplusage arguments to text/ordinary meaning.
• Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd., 561 U. S. 247; RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community, 579 U. S. 325; Abitron Austria GmbH v. Hetronic Int'l, Inc., 600 U. S. 412; Small v. United States, 544 U. S. 385:
  These cases supplied the modern presumption-against-extraterritoriality methodology. The majority invoked the presumption not to override a settled meaning, but as a tie-breaker between two readings—choosing the one that kept inspection/asylum obligations on the U.S. side of the border.
• Sale v. Haitian Centers Council, Inc., 509 U. S. 155:
  Treated by the majority as foreclosing respondents’ treaty-based argument. The Court relied on Sale’s construction of Article 33 of the Convention to conclude that it does not regulate a nation’s treatment of noncitizens outside its territory.
• Garland v. Aleman Gonzalez, 596 U. S. 543:
  In Justice Thomas’s concurrence, Aleman Gonzalez is the pivot for arguing that §1252(f)(1) strips lower courts of authority to award classwide injunctive-like relief “to enforce, implement, or otherwise carry out” covered INA provisions—and that declaratory relief may sometimes function as an impermissible substitute.
• California v. Grace Brethren Church, 457 U. S. 393 (and, by analogy, Samuels v. Mackell, 401 U. S. 66; Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37):
  Also in Justice Thomas’s concurrence, these cases support the proposition that “enjoin or restrain” language can bar declaratory relief where declarations have the same practical effect as injunctions—used to question whether §1252(f)(1) should be read to preclude classwide declarations.
• Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U. S. 667; Sessions v. Dimaya, 584 U. S. 148; Zivotofsky v. Kerry, 576 U. S. 1:
  In Justice Thomas’s concurrence, these authorities support the view that the President has inherent authority to exclude (and possibly to deport) aliens, raising constitutional-structure concerns with judicial orders that effectively require the Executive to permit entry.
• Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U. S. 369 (dissent); Pulsifer v. United States, 601 U. S. 124 (dissent); Sturgeon v. Frost, 577 U. S. 424 (dissent):
  Justice Sotomayor used these cases chiefly to frame interpretive method (text-in-context) and to underscore the asserted relevance of contemporaneous, consistent regulations as interpretive evidence.

Legal Reasoning

1) Ordinary meaning controls: “arrives in” requires entry

The majority’s core move is linguistic: “arrive” means “reach a destination,” and “in” means “within the bounds” of a place. From those ordinary definitions, a person arrives “in” a place only when the person enters it. The Court rejects the Ninth Circuit’s “threshold” theory under which a person can “arrive in” a place while remaining outside it if blocked by a barrier or official.

2) Statutory context reinforces the ordinary meaning

The Court relied on several contextual cues within the INA:

• The INA sometimes expressly covers “attempts” to enter (e.g., criminal provisions), but §§1158(a)(1) and 1225(a)(1) do not—suggesting Congress did not equate “attempted entry” with “arrival in.”
• Congress elsewhere used “near a land border” language, which it did not include here.
• Congress previously used “at a land border or port of entry” in §1158(a) (1994 ed.) but replaced it with “arrives in the United States” in 1996—implying a meaningful change.

3) The anti-surplusage canon does not overcome text and context

Respondents argued (and the Ninth Circuit agreed) that if “arrives in” requires physical presence, it becomes redundant with “physically present in the United States” in §1158(a)(1). The majority accepted that the point had “some force,” but treated redundancy as (i) not absolute, and (ii) an acceptable byproduct of Congress’s 1996 restructuring—particularly the introduction of expedited removal, which is keyed to “arrival.” The Court expressly preferred “some redundancy” over a reading that, in its view, distorts ordinary meaning.

4) Presumption against extraterritoriality as a tie-breaker

The Court reasoned that respondents’ reading effectively projects U.S. statutory obligations onto conduct occurring while the noncitizen remains outside the United States. Because neither §1158(a)(1) nor §1225(a)(1) unmistakably requires asylum processing/inspection of persons outside U.S. territory, the presumption against extraterritoriality supported the government’s territorial reading.

5) Treaty and policy arguments rejected

The Court used Sale v. Haitian Centers Council, Inc. to reject the argument that the Refugee Convention/Protocol forbids the government’s approach toward persons outside U.S. territory. It also dismissed “perverse incentives” arguments as insufficient to overcome the best reading of the statute, noting metering delays rather than permanently bars entry and that illegal entry carries criminal and immigration consequences.

6) Case remains live despite rescission

Although DHS rescinded metering, the majority found non-mootness because the District Court’s declaration remained operative within the Ninth Circuit and the government stated it might reintroduce metering as a tool. Thus, reversal would provide “effectual relief.”

Impact

1) Border management: metering and “line management” regain statutory space

The immediate doctrinal consequence is that, as a matter of the two INA provisions construed, the government may physically prevent entry at the border line without triggering (i) inspection obligations under §1225(a)(1) or (ii) asylum-application eligibility under §1158(a)(1), so long as the person remains outside the United States. This substantially strengthens the federal government’s legal position should it resume metering (or similar port-access controls) during surges.

2) Litigation posture shifts: challenges must target different hooks

After this decision, plaintiffs challenging border turnbacks will likely pivot away from claims that rely on “arrives in the United States” in §§1158(a)(1)/1225(a)(1), and instead explore other avenues (e.g., different INA provisions, constitutional claims, statutory limits on particular programs, or procedural challenges to new policies). The majority expressly confined itself to the meaning of “arrives in,” leaving other legal theories unresolved.

3) Territoriality baseline for asylum processing

The Court’s use of the presumption against extraterritoriality reinforces a broader interpretive posture: absent unmistakable congressional language, courts will be reluctant to read immigration-processing duties as extending to noncitizens outside U.S. territory even when U.S. officers are the ones creating the barrier at the border.

4) Remedies and §1252(f)(1) remain a looming fault line

Justice Thomas’s concurrence signals that future litigation may center not only on merits, but on whether classwide declaratory relief is an impermissible “end-run” around §1252(f)(1) (especially when sought via APA §706(1)). That question, explicitly reserved by the Court in other contexts, is now teed up as an institutional conflict over lower-court remedial power in immigration cases.

5) Practical effects for asylum seekers

The dissenting opinions stress humanitarian and incentive effects (including pressure toward unlawful entry). While the majority treated those considerations as policy concerns outside its role, the ruling’s practical footprint is nonetheless significant: statutory asylum/inspection triggers now turn on territorial entry, not the act of presenting at the threshold while still outside.