I've been politically active for over twenty years, starting with the 2004 election. It was the first where I could vote; I was two and a half months shy of my 18th birthday for the nightmare that was the 2000 election. Throughout my time in politics, there were a few constants.
One of those was that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was always reliably Leftist and bat-guano crazy. In recent years, they've made some better rulings, including this one about the California National Guard and this one that reinstated an injunction against California's one-gun-per-month law.
But old habits die hard, it seems.
The Ninth Circuit has just ruled that American borders no longer have any meaning:
"9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which regularly delivers surprising immigration rulings, said migrants 'on the United States’ doorstep' but still in Mexico have, at least for legal purposes, arrived in the US & must be given a chance to claim asylum"https://t.co/7tl5Nm9egv
— Mark Krikorian (@MarkSKrikorian) July 16, 2025
Here's more from the Washington Times:
The case arose from the Department of Homeland Security’s border 'metering' policy, which began under President Obama in 2016. It set a per-day maximum on unauthorized migrants who could show up at a land crossing between the U.S. and Mexico to demand asylum.
Immigration groups said the policy was illegal because it limited access to migrants claiming asylum.
The Trump and Biden administrations argued that the U.S. had no duty to consider asylum for people who had not set foot on American soil, but a federal district judge, and later the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said that migrants stopped before reaching the U.S. still qualified.
The law says U.S. obligations begin when a migrant 'is physically present in the United States or … arrives in the United States.'
In writing for the 9th Circuit majority, Judge Michelle Friedland said the definition of physically present was clear enough but 'arrives' was not. She said it couldn’t mean only being on U.S. soil because that would be redundant with the “physically present” language.
Judge Friedland's assertion that the term 'arrives' is somehow vague is -- at best -- laughable. Any reasonable person would understand that to be physically present on U.S. soil means to arrive (as in touch) U.S. soil. This is the Ninth Circuit playing semantics with clearly written immigration policy to advance an agenda.
It also sets a dangerous precedent.
If America has a 'doorstep' that's defined by an immigrant encountering an American official outside of America's borders, then we have no country, and our government -- be it the Trump administration or otherwise -- has no right to enforce our immigration laws, because there are no borders to enforce.
Furthermore, does the Ninth Circuit now believe that American laws extend to that 'doorstep'? Because this isn't a one-way street. If America has a 'doorstep' that grants asylum seekers the right to enter our country, America has the right to enforce its laws and regulations on that doorstep, too.
Can the IRS tax Mexicans on Mexican soil who happen to be near the U.S. border?
Can the FBI arrest them?
Can the EPA regulate Mexican car emissions?
For some reason, I suspect the Ninth Circuit wouldn't like that. Unless they are actually arguing that the United States of America has no borders.
If that's the case, then every American should be alarmed by this activism masquerading as jurisprudence.
This will, undoubtedly, be revisited by the Supreme Court, and the Ninth Circuit has quite the track record of being overturned once there: 70-80% of cases that go before SCOTUS get overturned.
For the sake of our nation, I hope this is one of them.
