The Supreme Court will hear the Trump administration’s fight to keep its Inauguration Day asylum ban in force, a tool lower courts rejected and the White House calls essential against illegal crossings.
The high court announced Friday it will review the case this term, with a decision expected by summer, after lower courts ruled the restrictions illegal.
The Hill reported that President Trump signed the proclamation on his first day back in office, categorically predenying the filing of asylum applications at the southern border. The policy has stayed in effect while the appeal proceeds.
That order sits at the center of a direct clash over who controls the border: the president charged with securing it, or courts and advocacy groups that say he overreached.
Asylum seekers, represented by the ACLU and other immigration groups, sued soon after the proclamation.
U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss, an appointee of former President Obama, held that the policy exceeded Trump’s authority and blocked it. In April, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld that ruling.
The administration then took the fight to the Supreme Court. The justices agreed to hear it the same Friday they also accepted a separate Robinhood investor-lawsuit appeal over IPO disclosures.
Under current law, asylum is available to people who claim persecution based on political views, religion, sexuality, or similar protected grounds. Those who clear an initial screening can enter the country and pursue their claim in immigration court, where a yearslong backlog often lets them remain for long stretches before a final hearing.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer framed the stakes in blunt terms in court filings. He called the policy Trump’s “main tool” for stopping illegal crossings.
Sauer warned what happens if the lower-court order takes full effect:
"And as several high-ranking government officials have explained, if allowed to take effect, the order below threatens to open the floodgates to illegal entry, once again overwhelming the system and rendering the southern border vulnerable to the trafficking of drugs, weapons, and other contraband and enabling cartels to re-establish control,"
Trump’s proclamation described conditions at the southern border as an “invasion” and cut off the filing of asylum claims on that basis. Challengers reject that approach as an unlawful rewrite of statutes Congress wrote.
Lee Gelernt, lead counsel and deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, cast the case as a separation-of-powers fight.
"The president does not have the right to unilaterally override the protections Congress has afforded those fleeing danger,"
Gelernt added that lower courts were correct to stop the policy and said the group will press its case before the justices:
"The courts are right to reject this unprecedented power grab that would put countless lives in danger. We look forward to making our case before the Supreme Court."
The challengers also argue illegal crossings were already in decline and say the proclamation eviscerates legal rights of noncitizens. The administration disputes that reading and treats the order as a necessary brake on a system that has repeatedly failed to control the border.
The justices will hear argument this term. A decision is expected by summer. Until then, the restrictions remain in place despite the district-court block and the D.C. Circuit’s April affirmance.
The core question is straightforward. Can a president, on day one, categorically shut off asylum filings to stop illegal entry and cartel traffic, or do existing statutes lock in a process that courts must enforce even when the border is under strain?
Sauer’s filings put public safety and system capacity front and center. The ACLU puts congressional text and individual claims first. The Supreme Court now owns the choice.
Border security is a core duty of the national government, not a suggestion for judges and advocacy shops to rewrite. The Court should keep the tool that lower courts tried to strip away.
