Mullin v. Al Otro Lado · ¶58

Our precedent forecloses this argument. We held in Sale v. Haitian Centers Council, Inc., 509 U. S. 155, 183 (1993), that the “text of Article 33 cannot reasonably be read to say anything at all about a nation’s actions toward aliens outside its own territory.” Because aliens who are standing in Mexico are outside the territory of the United States, the refusal to allow them to enter does not violate Article 33. In Sale, we ruled that Article 33 allowed the Government to “gather fleeing refugees” en masse to “preven[t]” them “from reaching our shores” and to “return them to the one country they had desperately sought to escape” “without first determining whether they may qualify as refugees.” Id., at 158, 160, 183. If that course of action is consistent with Article 33, the Article surely allows border officials to stop aliens without valid travel documents from entering the United…

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