The United States Supreme Court Building in Washington. Photo: Joe Ravi, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The US Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether President Donald Trump's order banning asylum at the southern border is lawful, setting up a landmark ruling on presidential power over immigration.
The justices granted the Trump administration's petition in Mullin v. Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, a case challenging the Day 1 executive proclamation that shut down asylum access along the US-Mexico border. The court is expected to hear arguments in the spring of 2027 and hand down a decision by the end of June.
What the Court Will Decide
The case centers on Proclamation 10888, titled "Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion," which Trump signed on January 20, 2025, his first day back in office. Invoking Sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the proclamation suspended the entry of people crossing the southern border between official ports of entry and barred them from applying for asylum and other protections that would let them remain in the United States.
The restrictions were to stay in place until the president determined that the "invasion at the southern border" had ended.
The Supreme Court agreed to decide two questions: whether the proclamation and its implementing guidance are lawful, and whether federal law bars courts from blocking the policy for everyone it covers, rather than only the people who brought the lawsuit. The justices declined to take up a third question from the government's petition, a challenge to the definition of the class of migrants covered by the case.
A Long Legal Fight
Lower courts have ruled against the administration at every stage so far — but the ban has remained in force throughout the litigation.
In July 2025, US District Judge Randolph Moss ruled for the challengers — the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) and the American Civil Liberties Union — and set aside the restrictions. A divided three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld that ruling in April 2026, finding that the proclamation exceeded presidential authority. The full appeals court declined to rehear the case in July 2026.
Even so, the restrictions never actually stopped. The appeals court paused the effect of its own ruling while the administration sought Supreme Court review, and parts of the lower-court judgment have been on hold since August 2025. That stay will remain in place while the justices consider the case, so the asylum bar for covered border crossers continues for now.
Why This Case Matters
The asylum ban was one of a series of immigration restrictions Trump rolled out upon his return to office in 2025, and it has become a pillar of his far-reaching crackdown on immigration. The Supreme Court's ruling will determine whether a president can use emergency powers to categorically shut down asylum — a protection written into federal law for people who fear persecution — during a declared border emergency.
It is the third major immigration case the high court will hear this term. On November 30, the justices are scheduled to hear another dispute over whether immigrants who received asylum can obtain lawful permanent resident status after that asylum status was terminated.
The administration is asking the justices to overturn the lower court decisions that found the ban unlawful. The challengers argue that the president cannot rewrite core immigration protections by proclamation, no matter how the situation at the border is described.
A decision is expected by the end of June 2027, before the court recesses for the summer — meaning the fate of asylum at the southern border will be settled in the middle of a presidential election year.
Sources: Associated Press; Immigration Analytics; Times Now