WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Friday, November 13, to decide the legality of President Donald Trump's ban on asylum at the southern border, taking up the administration's appeal in a case that will settle whether a presidential proclamation can close a door Congress wrote into immigration law. The justices granted review of a lower-court ruling that found the president exceeded his authority by denying migrants caught entering the country illegally the chance to apply for asylum, Reuters and the Associated Press reported.

Source: Reuters

The case is the third major immigration case the Supreme Court will hear this term, and immigration attorneys on both sides describe it as the term's defining test of presidential power over the asylum statute. The ban itself has remained in place throughout the litigation, under a partial stay that lets the administration keep barring asylum while still requiring officials to hear narrower withholding-of-removal and torture-protection claims.

What the ban does

The restrictions were announced on January 20, 2025, just hours into President Trump's second term, in Proclamation 10888, which declared an “invasion” at the southern border. Under the policy, migrants caught crossing the southern border illegally are barred from pursuing asylum claims at all. The prohibition also reaches migrants who arrive at official border crossings and lack certain medical or criminal-history information — a requirement advocates say is often impossible for people fleeing violence to meet. The proclamation says the policy remains in effect until the president determines that the “invasion at the southern border” has ended. Trump's curbs sweep more broadly than the asylum limits his predecessor, President Joe Biden, put in place to reduce illegal crossings.

How the case reached the justices

Immigrant-rights groups filed a class-action lawsuit on February 3, 2025, on behalf of would-be asylum seekers who said they were denied a “credible fear” interview before facing deportation. The plaintiffs — led by RAICES, the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, with Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project — were represented by the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, the ACLU and the National Immigrant Justice Center, among others. On July 2, 2025, a Washington-based federal judge vacated the proclamation as unlawful. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit partly stayed that judgment — asylum stayed barred, but withholding and Convention Against Torture claims had to be heard — and in April 2026 it affirmed the ruling against the policy, while largely blocking its own decision from taking effect so the administration could appeal. Solicitor General D. John Sauer then asked the Supreme Court to take the case, arguing in court papers that the president has sweeping authority to bar entry under federal immigration law and the Constitution.

Source: Awaaz Punjab, Nov 5 report on docket No. 26-239

The two arguments the Court will hear

The administration's case is that the executive branch, which decides whether asylum is granted, may categorically refuse applications covered by the order instead of accepting claims it says are destined to be rejected. Federal attorneys argue that years-long processing times previously fed a major influx at the southern border, because many migrants were released into the country while awaiting a decision. The government's certiorari petition credits the proclamation with a 93 percent fall in border encounters, to the lowest levels since the 1960s — a government figure that measures how sharply crossings fell, not how many asylum seekers the bar itself turned away.

The challengers answer from the statute itself. Federal law, at 8 U.S.C. 1158(a)(1), gives any noncitizen who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the country — whether or not at a designated port of arrival — the right to apply for asylum if they fear persecution, with each claim decided individually. Attorneys at the ACLU and the National Immigrant Justice Center counter that border crossings were already falling before Trump took office, and they call the executive order an unlawful attempt to unilaterally “eviscerate” legal protections for people fleeing danger.

Source: Associated Press

A crowded immigration docket

Friday's grant lands on a docket already heavy with the administration's immigration programme. The Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority and has been largely deferential to Trump on immigration in his second term, decided another asylum case for the administration earlier this year, clearing the way to potentially revive the “metering” policy once used to turn asylum seekers back at ports of entry. In September it let the administration resume deporting migrants to third countries — nations other than their own — without first offering them the chance to show the harms they may face there; the justices are due to hear arguments on the legality of that third-country policy on December 9. The Court will also decide this term whether immigrants can be detained indefinitely during deportation proceedings.

Why it reaches beyond the border

For Punjabi and other immigrant communities across the United States, this case is not only about the southern border. The ruling will define the boundary between presidential emergency powers and the Immigration and Nationality Act itself — the same statute under which family sponsorships, work visas and protection claims, including asylum claims by Punjabis who reach the U.S. border, are decided. What the partial stay means in practice today is narrow and hard-edged: a person at the border still has no access to asylum, while withholding-of-removal and torture-protection claims must still be considered — forms of protection that are harder to win and do not lead to permanent status in the way asylum can. This report is general information about a court case, not legal advice.

What happens next

The justices are expected to hear arguments in the coming months and to hand down a decision by the end of June 2027, the end of the Court's current term. Until then, the asylum ban remains in place during the litigation, and Friday's order changes nothing on the ground at the border. What to watch: whether the eventual argument centres on the broad presidential-power question — whether Section 212(f) entry powers can override the asylum statute — or on the narrower questions about classwide relief and the certified class, which could let the Court decide much of the case without ruling on presidential power at all. Awaaz Punjab will report the argument and the ruling as they happen.