Statutory holdings rest on plain text, ordinary meaning of phrases like 'arrives in the United States,' surrounding provisions, and presumptions against extraterritoriality (Al Otro Lado and TPS review bar). Mullin v. Doe ↗ Mullin v. Al Otro Lado ↗
Deference to government powerSkepticism of government power
Decisions reject government attempts to expand power via race-based Fourth Amendment tests, gun restrictions on private property, and broad judicial review of immigration actions (Carter dissent, Wolford, Mullin opinions). Wolford v. Lopez ↗ Mullin v. Al Otro Lado ↗ United States v. Carter ↗
The Supreme Court case Mullin v. Al Otro Lado addressed whether the Immigration and Nationality Act requires U.S. officials to inspect and process asylum applications from noncitizens who present themselves at ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border but remain in Mexico, or only from those who have crossed into the United States. The Court held that an alien standing in Mexico does not “arrive in the United States” by attempting to enter and being turned away under the government’s metering policy; instead, arrival occurs only upon crossing the border. As a result, the INA neither entitles such individuals to inspection nor permits them to apply for asylum until they are physically inside the country. The majority reached this conclusion by applying the ordinary meaning of “arrives in,” supported by surrounding statutory text that distinguishes actual from attempted entry, references to presence near but not at the border, and the presumption against extraterritorial application of U.S. immigration law. The decision reversed the Ninth Circuit and remanded the case.
In Wolford v. Lopez, Hawaii permit holders challenged a state law that banned carrying firearms on private property open to the public unless the owner gave express consent, arguing it violated their Second and Fourteenth Amendment rights after the Court’s Bruen decision recognized a right to carry handguns outside the home for self-defense. The Supreme Court held the law unconstitutional and reversed the Ninth Circuit. The Court reasoned that the restriction fell within the plain text of the Second Amendment by burdening the ability of law-abiding permit holders to carry arms, and that Hawaii’s proffered historical analogues—mostly anti-poaching laws, a single late 19th-century statute, and an 1865 Louisiana law tied to the Black Codes—were not relevantly similar in how or why they limited the right.
In Mullin v. Doe, Syrian and Haitian nationals challenged the Secretary of Homeland Security’s termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for their countries under the Administrative Procedure Act, seeking court orders to postpone the terminations during litigation; the Haiti plaintiffs also raised an equal protection claim alleging racial motivation. The Supreme Court reversed the lower courts’ grants of interim relief. It held that 8 U.S.C. §1254a(b)(5)(A) bars judicial review of all non-constitutional claims concerning any determination “with respect to” a TPS designation or termination. The Court further held that the equal protection claim was unlikely to succeed, as the administration’s policy of ending every TPS designation that came up for renewal supplied a race-neutral explanation and the cited statements by officials were not overtly racial.
The case concerned whether Isabella County, Michigan, violated the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause or the Eighth Amendment Excessive Fines Clause by retaining all proceeds above a $2,241.93 tax debt after foreclosing on and auctioning the Pung family home for $76,008, rather than compensating the owner for the property’s higher assessed or hypothetical fair market value. The Supreme Court held that the proper measure of “just compensation” is the surplus from the actual tax-sale price, not fair market value, and that the Eighth Amendment does not require more. The Court reasoned that English and American law, federal statutes, state practices, and precedents dating back to the Founding have long permitted tax sales while requiring only the return of surplus proceeds above the debt. It further explained that fair-market-value compensation is inappropriate in this context because owners can generally avoid foreclosure through refinancing or sale, and imposing such a rule would render tax sales impractical by often producing net losses for governments. The Court vacated the Sixth Circuit’s judgment and remanded for further proceedings on any preserved claims of procedural unfairness.
The case arose when police officers in Washington, D.C., responding to reports of gunfire, approached Donte Carter and others on a sidewalk, asked Carter to lift his pants, observed a bulge, and recovered a stolen firearm after a frisk. Carter moved to suppress the evidence, claiming the encounter became a seizure without reasonable suspicion; the D.C. Superior Court denied the motion, but the D.C. Court of Appeals reversed, ruling that whether a person would feel free to end the encounter must be assessed from the perspective of an objective person sharing the defendant’s race as a Black man, drawing on studies about differential compliance with police. The Supreme Court denied the government’s petition for certiorari. Justice Alito, joined by Justice Thomas, dissented from the denial, contending that the D.C. court’s injection of race into the traditional Fourth Amendment “reasonable person” test conflicts with precedent requiring an objective inquiry and with constitutional principles against race-based treatment of individuals.
In Ashley Grayson v. United States, the petitioner challenged the admission at trial of a FaceTime recording in which she offered to pay for a murder, arguing that the recording should have been suppressed under 18 U.S.C. §2515. The Sixth Circuit upheld its admission on the ground that the statute contains a “clean-hands” exception. The Solicitor General later conceded that this exception does not exist. The Supreme Court granted certiorari, vacated the judgment, and remanded the case to the Sixth Circuit for further consideration in light of the government’s new position. Justice Alito dissented, contending that any error was harmless because other properly admitted evidence, including a separate recording in which Grayson described the same conversation, overwhelmingly proved her guilt.
