Chloe Miracle-Rutledge is a JURIST Supreme Court Correspondent and a 2L at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC.
This week, I attended oral arguments at the United States Supreme Court in Noem v. Al Otro Lado, a case concerning the government’s policy toward asylum seekers at the U.S.–Mexico border.
It was quiet outside the Court when I arrived. Members of the press told me there had...
The strongest version of this narrative highlights a genuine legal and moral tension: how to reconcile statutory text with humanitarian obligations. The government’s argument is textually plausible—"arrives in" intuitively suggests physical presence—while the challengers’ interpretation aligns with the spirit of asylum law, which aims to protect those fleeing persecution. The Court’s conservative wing appears inclined toward a literal reading, while liberals emphasize the policy’s real-world con...