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Supreme Court Rejects Trump's Asylum Ban
· Confirmed
In Short: The US Supreme Court on Friday rejected the Trump administration's policy to deny asylum to migrants who cross the US-Mexico border illegally, ruling 5-4 against the ban.
The US Supreme Court on Friday rejected the Trump administration's policy to deny asylum to migrants who cross the US-Mexico border illegally, ruling 5-4 against the ban.
President Donald Trump had issued a proclamation on November 9, 2025, stating that only asylum claims made at official ports of entry would be heard.
Federal judges had previously stayed the asylum ban, ruling it tried to circumvent existing laws granting anyone the right to asylum in the US.
Lower federal courts blocked the policy from going into effect soon after, and a panel of appeals court judges upheld that injunction.
The Supreme Court offered no opinion, just a document noting the order upholding the lower courts' ruling against the ban.
Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court's liberals in the 5-4 decision.
The ACLU noted that many legitimate asylum seekers, fearing for their lives, enter illegally 'through no fault of their own'.
The Trump administration had argued it could categorically deny asylum to migrants covered by the order and should not have to accept applications destined to be rejected.
Solicitor General John Sauer argued the president had inherent authority to restrict asylum for immigrants.
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.
The court’s decision effectively upholds lower court rulings that found the policy illegal.
The Supreme Court begins a new term Monday with significant cases on climate change, religious rights, and immigration.
What this adds
The ruling is consistent with the Supreme Court's stance on the Trump administration's immigration policies.
The court's decision aligns with lower court rulings that had previously blocked the policy.
The decision underscores the Supreme Court's role in upholding federal laws and limiting executive overreach.
Background
The US Supreme Court on Friday rejected the Trump administration's policy to deny asylum to migrants who cross the US-Mexico border illegally, ruling 5-4 against the ban.
The Supreme Court has lifted a federal court order, allowing the Trump administration to resume construction of the border wall in the Big Bend region of Texas.
What's confirmed
- On 9 November, President Donald Trump issued a proclamation stating that only asylum claims made at official ports of entry would be heard.
- The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to consider President Donald Trump's ban on asylum at the U.S-Mexico border.
- Justices on the high court agreed to hear Mullin v. Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, a case centered around the Trump administration's 2025 policy banning migrants from claiming asylum at the southern border.
- 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.
- Separate challenges to the law divided two federal circuit courts, which issued conflicting decisions in April, only 11 days apart.
- Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the sole dissenter in a new Supreme Court order that green-lit New Hampshire to fully ban student IDs for voting during November's midterm elections.
- At the same time, it also allows the executive branch to decide whether people are granted asylum.
- Federal law gives people the right to seek asylum if they fear persecution in their home countries, no matter how they arrived in the US.
- The Trump administration argues it can categorically deny asylum to migrants covered by the order and should not have to accept applications destined to be rejected.
What's still developing
- Trump issued the order on his first day in office, declaring an “invasion” on the southern border and using that as a reason to deny asylum claims by refugees who present themselves there.
- Lower courts have ruled against the policy, which has effectively shut down avenues for people seeking asylum protections and to remain in the United States.
- An attorney representing the Republican district attorney of Sheboygan County sought to convince the liberal-leaning Wisconsin Supreme Court to reactivate a 175-year-old law that has been construed as an abortion ban after a Dane County judge ruled it was a prohibition on feticide.
- But for all practical purposes, the formerly quiet summer months after the court finishes its opinions in all argued cases no longer exists.
- The justices granted the application to pause a lower court’s injunction that required New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan to revise guidance he issued announcing that student IDs could no longer be used for any purpose at all.
- McKechnie was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of a 1994 murder by the Queensland Supreme Court.
- The United States Supreme Court is deciding a pair of cases that could end affirmative action programs that consider race in college admissions.
- A three-judge panel from the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the federal ban in a case brought by John Ream, a brewpub owner from Newark, Ohio, who wants to distill whisky at home for his personal consumption.
- In a filing with the Supreme Court, Colorado said participants in the preschool program must enroll children regardless of the race, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity of the child or their parents.
- The Supreme Court will consider whether the policy, which the administration implemented as part of sweeping immigration policy changes when entering office last year, is lawful, and whether the federal district court’s ruling striking it down was too broad.
- In a judgment released today, Supreme Court judge Claire Harris rejected McKechnie's bid to access Vegemite, a popular Australian spread that first rolled off the production line in 1923.
- The Supreme Court has rejected a request to hear a challenge to a school district’s ban on shirts with the phrase “Let’s Go Brandon,” a riff on a crude comment about Democrat Joe Biden when he was president.