Supreme Court Takes Up Trump's Border Asylum Ban

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether President Trump can suspend access to asylum for migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, according to CBS News and SCOTUSblog.

The justices granted the administration’s petition in Mullin v. Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, limiting their review to two of the three questions the government asked them to take up, according to the Supreme Court’s docket. Reuters reported the decision in a post on X.

Supreme Court will weigh Trump's asylum restrictions at US-Mexico border https://t.co/mO0LGiytuo

— Reuters (@Reuters) November 14, 2026

A decision is expected by the end of June or early July, CBS News reported.

The Day One proclamation

The case stems from a proclamation Trump issued on Jan. 20, 2025, declaring that “an invasion is ongoing at the southern border” and suspending the entry of noncitizens “engaged in the invasion,” according to SCOTUSblog.

The Department of Homeland Security then issued guidance implementing the directive, CBS News reported. According to SCOTUSblog, that guidance barred noncitizens covered by the policy from applying for asylum and said those who entered anyway would be quickly removed without some of the procedural protections provided by law.

Immigration authorities have since relied on the policy to summarily remove migrants entering the country illegally without allowing them to apply for asylum, according to CBS News.

Lower courts ruled against the administration

In February 2025, three nonprofit groups and 13 individuals filed a class-action lawsuit challenging the proclamation and the guidance, CBS News reported. SCOTUSblog said the individual challengers say they were persecuted or tortured in their home countries.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington later found the asylum restrictions unlawful and set aside the DHS guidance, according to CBS News and SCOTUSblog.

In April, a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit largely upheld that ruling, according to SCOTUSblog. Judge J. Michelle Childs, joined by Judge Cornelia Pillard, wrote that Congress “did not intend to grant the Executive the expansive removal authority it asserts,” SCOTUSblog reported.

Judge Justin Walker dissented in part, according to SCOTUSblog. He argued that the president has the discretion to deny all asylum applications, while agreeing with the majority that the government cannot remove migrants to countries where they would be persecuted, SCOTUSblog reported.

Policy stays in place for now

The D.C. Circuit put its ruling on hold while the government appeals, allowing the administration to keep enforcing the asylum restrictions, according to SCOTUSblog and CBS News.

The justices agreed to consider whether the proclamation and guidance are lawful and whether federal immigration law bars the classwide relief the district court ordered, according to the Supreme Court’s docket. The court declined to take up a third question about whether the class itself was properly defined, SCOTUSblog reported.

The case is one of several Trump immigration cases the high court will decide in the coming months, CBS News reported. According to CBS News, the justices are also considering the legality of removing migrants to third countries and of detaining immigrants in the U.S. illegally without access to a bond hearing.

Several outside groups filed briefs in the case, including the Federation for American Immigration Reform, America First Legal Foundation and a coalition of states led by Iowa, according to the court’s docket.

Sources

• Reuters on X
• CBS News: Supreme Court takes up case over Trump effort to suspend asylum access at southern border
• SCOTUSblog: Supreme Court agrees to hear case on Trump administration’s suspension of asylum
• Supreme Court docket No. 26-239

Reporting by Daily Beltway.