By Andrew Chung
Oct 13 (Reuters) – The US Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to hear a bid by President Donald Trump’s administration to deny asylum to a man who was forced to prepare meals for an apparent separatist group in Nigeria, in a case that could expand what officials may deem terrorist activity under American immigration law.
The justices took up the Justice Department’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling in favor of Nigerian citizen Izuchukwu Ozurumba, who was denied US asylum due to his work cooking for a group known as the Unknown Gunmen that US officials considered to be a terrorist organization. The lower court ruled that cooking did not qualify as “material support” for terrorism under the immigration statute.
The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments and rule in the case by the end of June.
The administration, in appealing the case to the Supreme Court, said that if the lower court’s ruling were allowed to stand, it would “substantially increase the burden on the government in excluding aliens with links to terrorism.”
The case centers on whether Ozurumba’s work for the group fell under provisions of US immigration law that bar the entry of non-US citizens who have “engaged in a terrorist activity,” including actions that provide “material support” for such activity or “to a terrorist organization.”
“At stake in this case is whether the government can use an overly broad reading of the law to shut the door on people seeking asylum,” said Aimee Mayer-Salins, an attorney with the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, which is helping to represent Ozurumba.
The lower court “correctly recognized that asylum should not be denied to immigrants who provided no meaningful support to a terrorist group,” Mayer-Salins added.
Following a job tip in 2022, Ozurumba took a van to a remote camp outside of Lagos, according to court papers. After he was hired, he eventually learned the camp was run by the Unknown Gunmen, a group likely associated with Nigerian separatists, according to court papers.
Ozurumba soon “observed that the young men’s movements from the camp coincided with news reports of murder and arson,” his lawyers said in a court filing. Ozurumba sought to leave but was forced to stay without pay, they added.
After six months he escaped while on an outing for supplies, eventually making his way back to Lagos, they said.
Ozurumba then faced beatings and threats of death, prompting him to flee to Venezuela, where the threats continued, his lawyers said. Ozurumba then traveled to the southern US border and entered the country illegally in July 2023. Ozurumba eventually applied for asylum and other protections from deportation.
‘BASIC HUMAN NEEDS’
During Democratic former President Joe Biden’s administration, an immigration judge deemed the Unknown Gunmen a terrorist organization and found that Ozurumba’s cooking for the group rendered him inadmissible, and denied him any protections from deportation.
The judge concluded that the cooking helped the group accomplish its goals by satisfying their “basic human needs,” and that it was irrelevant that he had worked under duress.
Ozurumba was deported back to Nigeria last year while his case was on appeal.
The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Ozurumba in September 2025, ruling that he was a captive laborer and his cooking did not constitute material support.
Ozurumba’s work “provided nothing that the organization could use or readily divert to plan or carry out its terrorist activities,” the 4th Circuit ruled, but declined to order the government to return him to the US while the case proceeds.
“Providing meals to a terrorist organization’s members is no less a material form of support than providing gasoline for its vehicles,” the Justice Department told the Supreme Court in its appeal.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)
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