Supreme Court to rule on Trump’s asylum ban

WASHINGTON — Taking up another key aspect of President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda, the Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether the administration has the authority to ban asylum claims at the southern border.Although a federal judge ruled that the policy Trump enacted on the first day of his second term was unlawful, it has remained in effect while litigation continues.The Supreme Court’s ruling, due before the end of June, will be the final word on the Trump administration’s sweeping assertion of presidential power over people trying to make asylum claims at the border, notwithstanding federal law enacted by Congress that lays out a procedure to do so.The asylum dispute is the third significant case on Trump’s immigration policies that the court is considering, while the justices could take up other Trump-related cases in the coming months.The ban stems from a proclamation the president issued Jan. 20, 2025, that declared an “invasion” on the southern border. Under one of its provisions, anyone who crosses the border without required paperwork can immediately be removed without the ability to claim asylum. Immigration hawks have long complained that people who enter the country illegally apply for asylum in order to stay in the country while their cases are processed, even if they do not have valid claims.Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in court papers that the president has sweeping authority to bar entry to the U.S., both under specific federal immigration laws and the powers delegated to him in the Constitution. The policy “rests on a commonsense understanding of the President’s inherent and delegated powers to exclude aliens,” Sauer wrote.He pointed to a provision of immigration law that says the president can restrict entry of anyone when he deems it would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.”The policy was challenged by 13 unnamed plaintiffs, as well as three immigration groups: the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project.Their lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union argue that the ban flouts the asylum rules implemented by Congress in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Under that process, immigrants can argue that they have “credible fear” of torture or persecution if they are returned to their home country. The president “may not invent by fiat a new removal system that eviscerates the protections Congress mandated by statute,” they wrote in court papers.In July 2025, Washington-based U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss ruled against the administration, saying that nothing in the Constitution or immigration law “grants the president ... authority to replace the comprehensive rules and procedures set forth in the INA.”In April this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld Moss’ ruling, leading the administration to seek Supreme Court review.In one of the two other immigration cases on the Supreme Court docket, the justices will consider the administration’s ongoing efforts to deport immigrants to “third countries” they have no previous connection to if they cannot be returned to their home nations.The other case concerns the administration’s attempt to detain indefinitely thousands of people in deportation proceedings, a break from previous administrations, which released those immigrants while their cases were adjudicated.The asylum case follows a related ruling in favor of the president’s authority over the border in June.The Supreme Court has had a steady stream of Trump-related immigration cases dating back to his first term, when it upheld his travel ban on people from mostly Muslim-majority countries entering the United States.But in June, the court delivered a major blow to Trump when it blocked his executive order seeking to limit the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship.