The United States will effectively stop accepting asylum seekers on the basis of recent Supreme Court rulings, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said. Speaking to reporters, he stated that “America’s doors are completely closed to asylum seekers.”
According to Miller, the authorities have found a “simple and elegant solution”: if a person seeks asylum in the United States, officials will try to find another country willing to take them.
Miller was commenting on two US Supreme Court decisions on immigration issued a day earlier in favor of President Donald Trump’s administration. The Washington Post noted that the rulings give the White House room to reshape the current asylum system and the deportation framework for migrants arriving from countries affected by war and natural disasters.
The first ruling allows the Trump administration to revoke humanitarian protections for refugees from Haiti, numbering about 350,000 people, and from Syria, where more than 6,000 people are covered. Many of them have lived and worked in the United States for years.
The decision could also affect all 1.3 million people holding Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Many have already lost protection from deportation but challenged those decisions in court. The Washington Post said the Supreme Court’s position may now influence the outcome of those cases.
The second ruling paves the way for the return of an immigration policy previously used at the US-Mexico border. That mechanism allows border officials to limit how many people may apply for asylum in a single day.
During his second presidential term, Trump has steadily tightened US immigration policy. After returning to the White House in January 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, effectively gained the ability to carry out mass deportations. Several people were reported killed during ICE raids.