The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear the Trump administration’s appeal seeking to reinstate the denial of asylum to a Nigerian man deported over allegations that he provided material support to a terrorist organisation by cooking for members of a separatist group.
The court announced its decision in a brief order on Tuesday.
The case will be considered during its current term, which began on October 5 and is expected to run until late June.
The case centres on whether cooking meals for members of a Nigerian separatist group amounts to providing “material support” for terrorism under US immigration law.
Izuchukwu Ozurumba said he was forced to cook at a separatist group’s camp in southern Nigeria for about six months beginning in 2022.
He later fled to Venezuela before crossing the US-Mexico border illegally in the summer of 2023.
In 2024, a US immigration judge rejected his asylum application and ordered his deportation, citing a provision of US immigration law that bars foreign nationals who provide material support to a terrorist organisation from receiving asylum.
The decision was subsequently upheld on appeal.
Ozurumba’s lawyers said he was deported to Nigeria in April 2025. However, a federal appeals court later overturned the earlier decisions and returned the case to the immigration court for reconsideration.
In its ruling, the appeals court said cooking meals with food and supplies purchased by the organisation might have sustained it in a broad sense, but did not establish that Ozurumba provided resources the group could use or readily divert to plan or carry out terrorist activities.
“As far as the record shows, Ozurumba was simply a captive laborer whose work had nothing to do with those activities,” the court wrote.
The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to overturn that ruling as part of its broader efforts to deport undocumented immigrants.
The Supreme Court’s decision could have wider implications for asylum seekers, particularly in cases where applicants argue that their involvement with a group was involuntary or unrelated to its violent activities.
The outcome will depend on how the justices interpret the meaning and scope of “material support” under US immigration law.
