The United States Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether cooking for members of a Nigerian separatist group amounts to providing “material support” for terrorism.
In a brief order on Tuesday, the court said it will hear the Trump administration’s appeal seeking to reinstate a ruling that denied asylum to Izuchukwu Ozurumba, a Nigerian who was deported over alleged support for a terrorist group.
The case will be heard in the court’s current term, which began on October 5 and runs through late June.
Beyond Ozurumba’s case, the outcome could have wide implications for asylum seekers, depending on how the nine justices, six conservatives and three liberals, interpret “material support.”
Background
Ozurumba says he was forced to cook at a separatist group’s camp in southern Nigeria for about six months, starting in 2022. He later fled to Venezuela and crossed the US-Mexico border illegally in the summer of 2023.
In 2024, a US immigration judge rejected his asylum claim and ordered his deportation, citing a provision of US immigration law that bars anyone who provides “material support” to a terrorist organisation from receiving asylum. An appeal upheld the decision.
His lawyers say he was deported to Nigeria in April 2025. A federal appeals court later overturned the earlier rulings and sent the case back to the immigration court for reconsideration.
The appeals court said cooking meals with food and supplies bought by the group may have “sustained” it in the broadest sense, but gave it nothing it could use or readily divert to plan or carry out terrorist activities.
“As far as the record shows, Ozurumba was simply a captive labourer whose work had nothing to do with those activities,” the court added.
The Trump administration, as part of its sweeping campaign to deport undocumented immigrants, is asking the Supreme Court to overturn the appeals court’s ruling.
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