Supreme Court Will Hear Trump’s Ban on Asylum at the Southern Border

Featured image: The west facade of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., in a May 2008 file photo. Photo: Matt H. Wade (UpstateNYer), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Cropped to 16:9.

The Supreme Court on Friday, Nov. 13, agreed to hear the Trump administration’s appeal of lower-court rulings that found the president’s suspension of asylum at the southern border unlawful, a case that goes to a central part of his immigration policy.

Key points from the Supreme Court’s order and docket in No. 26-239, the questions-presented document, and SCOTUSblog’s Nov. 13, 2026, report by Amy Howe.

In a short list of orders from their private conference earlier in the day, the justices granted the government’s petition for a writ of certiorari, limited to the first two questions presented, the court’s official questions-presented paper and docket show. The case is Markwayne Mullin, Secretary of Homeland Security, et al. v. Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, et al., No. 26-239. It comes from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which decided the appeal on April 24, 2026, and denied rehearing on July 23. The petition was docketed on Aug. 24 and was distributed for the Nov. 13 conference after an earlier distribution for Nov. 6.

The Associated Press called the policy a pillar of Trump’s immigration crackdown. The administration wants the justices to overturn decisions that found it illegal to block asylum applications after a proclamation that described conditions at the southern border as an “invasion.”

What the proclamation and guidance did

SCOTUSblog, in a report by Amy Howe, said the case has its roots in a Jan. 20, 2025, proclamation in which Trump declared that “an invasion is ongoing at the southern border” and suspended the entry of noncitizens “engaged in the invasion.” The court’s questions-presented document identifies the measure as Presidential Proclamation No. 10,888, published at 90 Federal Register 8333 on Jan. 29, 2025. The Boston Report has not independently opened the Federal Register page in this reporting; the citation is the one the court itself used.

The Department of Homeland Security then issued guidance that, among other things, barred noncitizens from applying for asylum and indicated that people who entered despite the entry suspension would be removed quickly, without some of the procedural protections provided by law, SCOTUSblog reported.

The challengers are 13 individuals who say they have been persecuted or tortured in their home countries, and three immigration-related nonprofits, according to SCOTUSblog. They filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court in Washington, arguing that the proclamation and the guidance violate federal immigration law. U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss recognized a class of immigrants who are or would be subject to the proclamation, concluded that the DHS guidance was unlawful, and barred officials from carrying out those actions under the proclamation, Howe reported.

How the D.C. Circuit ruled, and what is in effect now

A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit later largely upheld Moss’s order on the merits, SCOTUSblog reported. Judge J. Michelle Childs, joined by Judge Cornelia Pillard, wrote that the “text, structure, and history” of federal immigration law “make clear that in supplying power to suspend entry by Presidential proclamation, Congress did not intend to grant the Executive the expansive removal authority it asserts.” The proclamation and guidance are “unlawful to the extent that they circumvent … removal procedures and cast aside federal laws affording individuals the right to apply and be considered for asylum or withholding of removal protections,” the majority said, as quoted by Howe.

Judge Justin Walker dissented in part. He argued that Trump has discretion to deny all asylum applications and can therefore dispense with the application process on the ground that he would deny the applications, Howe reported. He agreed with the majority, however, that the government “cannot remove aliens to countries where they will be persecuted, and the Proclamation and Guidance cannot strip them of mandatory procedures that protect against that removal.”

The D.C. Circuit kept its ruling on hold while the government appealed, allowing the administration to maintain the asylum restrictions in the meantime, SCOTUSblog reported. The Supreme Court’s grant of review does not itself lift or reinstate the policy; it sets the case for briefing and argument. Howe wrote that the justices will likely hear arguments sometime next spring.

The questions the court will decide — and one it will not

The court agreed to decide two questions, as set out in its official document:

First, whether Proclamation 10,888 and its implementing guidance — “which suspended the entry of certain aliens and precluded their access to statutory provisions that would enable their continued presence in the country, including asylum — are lawful.”

Second, whether 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(1) bars the classwide relief the district court entered.

The justices declined to take up a third question in the petition: whether the class definition comports with Article III and Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices that suspending illegal entry and “precluding their access to asylum” was among “[t]he most important and effective pieces of the President’s response,” and that the proclamation “rests on a commonsense understanding of the President’s inherent and delegated powers to exclude aliens,” Howe reported. He also argued that federal immigration law bars lower courts from issuing orders that require officials to implement specified provisions, including those allowing people to assert an asylum claim and obtain a hearing before expedited removal, and that the class “sweeps in aliens who are currently overseas and have no imminent plans to enter the United States.”

The challengers urged the court to deny review. They said the D.C. Circuit “correctly held that the President may not invent by fiat a new removal system that eviscerates the protections Congress mandated by statute,” and that federal law provides that noncitizens “may apply” for asylum, “irrespective of … status,” Howe reported. They also contested the administration’s account of an “unprecedented crisis,” writing in their brief, as quoted by SCOTUSblog, that “by January 2025, before the Proclamation took effect, border apprehensions had returned to historically routine levels, down over 90 percent from their peak.” That figure is the challengers’ claim in their brief, not a finding by the Supreme Court, and The Boston Report has not independently verified the underlying apprehension data in this report. The challengers said that if the executive branch wants new tools at the border, “Congress must provide them.” In their telling, that authority belongs to the U.S. Congress, not to a presidential proclamation.

Friday’s grant adds to a larger immigration docket already before the court, Howe wrote, including a challenge to the administration’s practice of deporting people to countries not identified in their removal orders, sometimes called third-country or third-party removals, and a policy of detaining people apprehended inside the United States without the opportunity for a hearing.

In a separate order the same day, the court also agreed to hear Robinhood Markets v. Sodha, a securities case about whether a company can be held liable under the misleading-omissions provision of federal securities law for failing to disclose interim financial information, SCOTUSblog reported. That case is not about immigration.

Sources

• Supreme Court of the United States: Questions Presented, No. 26-239, Mullin v. Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, cert. granted Nov. 13, 2026
• Supreme Court docket for No. 26-239
• SCOTUSblog, Amy Howe: Supreme Court agrees to hear case on Trump administration’s suspension of asylum (Nov. 13, 2026)
• Associated Press: Supreme Court will consider Trump’s executive order suspending asylum access at the southern border (Nov. 13, 2026)
• The Washington Post: Supreme Court to review Trump policy blocking asylum seekers at border (Nov. 13, 2026)