Supreme Court Takes Up Trump’s Suspension of Asylum at Southern Border

The Supreme Court agreed Friday, November 13, to decide whether President Donald Trump’s administration may suspend access to asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, adding a major immigration dispute to the justices’ 2026–27 docket.

The brief order did not decide whether the policy is legal. The court’s official docket for Mullin v. Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, No. 26-239, says the petition was granted only on the first two questions presented by the administration. Those questions concern the legality of the policy and the authority of a lower court to provide broad relief. The justices declined to take up a separate question about whether the challengers’ class satisfied class-action rules.

The dispute traces back to Trump’s January 20, 2025, proclamation declaring that an “invasion” was underway at the southern border. The proclamation suspended the entry of certain noncitizens and said people covered by it could not seek protections, including asylum, that might allow them to remain in the United States. The Department of Homeland Security then issued guidance barring asylum applications from affected noncitizens and allowing faster removals with fewer procedures.

Thirteen people who said they had faced persecution or torture in their home countries joined three immigration organizations in challenging the proclamation and the DHS guidance. U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss ruled that the guidance was unlawful and blocked officials from carrying out the challenged parts of the policy for a class of affected migrants.

A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit largely upheld Moss’s ruling. Judges J. Michelle Childs and Cornelia Pillard concluded that federal immigration law did not give the executive branch authority to bypass statutory removal procedures or discard provisions allowing people to apply for asylum and withholding of removal. Judge Justin Walker dissented in part, arguing that a president may direct the denial of asylum applications, but he agreed that the government cannot remove people to countries where they would face persecution without required safeguards.

The appeals court kept its ruling on hold while the administration pursued Supreme Court review. As a result, the administration’s restrictions remain in effect while the case proceeds, according to SCOTUSblog’s account of the litigation.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices that the border had been overwhelmed and argued that suspending unlawful entry and restricting access to asylum were central to the president’s response. He said Trump acted within powers delegated by Congress and within the president’s authority over entry into the country. The administration also challenged the lower court’s power to issue relief covering the full class.

The challengers countered that federal law expressly allows noncitizens to apply for asylum regardless of their status or how they entered the country. They argued that the president cannot create a new removal system that eliminates protections Congress placed in statute. They also disputed the administration’s description of conditions at the border, saying apprehensions had fallen sharply before the proclamation took effect.

The case will test both the reach of presidential power at the border and the judiciary’s ability to block immigration policies for groups broader than the individual plaintiffs. The justices are expected to hear arguments during the current term, likely in spring 2027. Until the court rules, Friday’s action changes the forum for the dispute, not the policy now operating at the border.

Sources and image credit

• Supreme Court docket — Mullin v. Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, No. 26-239
• SCOTUSblog — Supreme Court agrees to hear case on Trump administration’s suspension of asylum
• Reuters — Supreme Court will weigh Trump’s asylum restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border
• Image source and license — Kurt Kaiser, Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0 public-domain dedication