Supreme Court to decide asylum ban by end of June in third immigration case

Justices will also rule on third-country deportations and indefinite detention

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to take up President Donald Trump’s executive order suspending asylum applications at the southern border, and the justices are expected to hear the case in the coming months and hand down a decision by the end of June.

It is the third major immigration case the high court will hear this term. The justices will also decide whether people can be swiftly deported to countries other than their homelands, and whether immigrants can be detained indefinitely during deportation proceedings.

The Trump administration is asking the justices to overturn lower court decisions that found the executive order banning asylum applications illegal. The order was one of a series of immigration restrictions Trump rolled out upon his return to office in 2025, and it has remained in place during the litigation.

The dispute turns on how federal asylum law divides authority between Congress and the president. Federal law gives people the right to seek asylum if they fear persecution in their home countries, no matter how they arrived in the U.S. The same law allows the executive branch to decide whether people are granted asylum.

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. Federal attorneys say yearslong processing times had previously contributed to a major influx of migrants at the southern border, as many were released into the country while awaiting a decision.

The executive branch does decide whether to grant asylum, which allows people to live and work legally in the U.S., immigration attorneys say. But those decisions are supposed to be made on an individual basis, and the law doesn’t allow the president to unilaterally stop people from even applying, the attorneys argue.

Lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigrant Justice Center say border crossings were already falling before Trump took office. They say his executive order is an unlawful attempt to unilaterally “eviscerate” legal protections aimed at protecting people fleeing danger in their home countries.

The court decided another asylum case in favor of the administration earlier this year, clearing the way for the Trump administration to potentially revive a “metering” policy that has been used to turn back immigrants in years past.