Asylum

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court announced Friday it will rule on President Trump’s ban on asylum claims at the southern border, testing a key part of his hard-line policy on immigration.

At issue is a clash between the promise of asylum for those fleeing persecution and the reality of a border overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands who arrived seeking to apply.

Trump’s lawyers said his ban on asylum claims in January 2025 was his “single most effective policy” in ending the chaos along the border.

“Over preceding four years, at least eight million illegal aliens were encountered along the southern border,” Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer told the court, “and countless millions more evaded detection and illegally entered the United States.”

The sheer numbers of people coming to the border had “overwhelmed the system,” making it impossible for U.S. officials to screen and interview asylum seekers, he said. Lacking facilities to detain applicants, most were released into the country.

But the American Civil Liberties Union and other immigration rights advocates said the right of individuals to seek asylum was recognized in U.S. law and could not be abolished.

The law authorizes asylum for people who can demonstrate they are fleeing persecution based on race, religion, nationality or belonging to a particular social or political group.

Federal judges in Washington agreed that asylum must be preserved. They said immigration officials were free to reject claims for asylum but they could not eliminate the right for the entire category of potential applicants.

However, their ruling was put on hold while the administration appealed to the Supreme Court.

“The president does not have the right to unilaterally override the protections Congress has afforded those fleeing danger,” said Lee Gelernt, lead counsel and deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “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.”

Keren Zwick, executive director of the National Immigrant Justice Center, said the plaintiffs in the case “fled persecution and torture, including political imprisonment and threats from the Taliban. Yet, the Trump administration refused to honor its obligation to consider them for asylum.”

Instead, some of them “were removed to third countries and then pushed back to the very place they fled. This vicious attack on due process and human rights has put thousands of lives in danger.”

Federal immigration law gives the president broad authority to close the border to most migrants.

It says he “may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”

The court said it would hear the case of Mullin vs. Refugee and Immigrant Center early next year and rule by June.

LOS ANGELES — A U.S. deportation flight of Iranian nationals bound for Iran by way of Pakistan was abruptly canceled Sunday morning, according to an attorney who spoke to some of the detainees scheduled for repatriation.

At least eight Iranians were loaded onto a plane Sunday morning in Mesa, Ariz., for a deportation flight headed to the Caucasus nation of Georgia, then on to Pakistan, according to Ali Rahnama, an attorney with the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund who filed emergency motions on behalf of some of the Iranian detainees. The flight was canceled without explanation, he said.

Court documents unsealed days ago in a civil lawsuit filed by the fund showed the Trump administration as recently as mid-October said it had plans to deport the Iranians to Iran, even as the war there drags on, via an unnamed third country. The lawsuit was filed in July and alleges that the U.S. government illegally shared confidential information with Iranian officials about Iranians seeking asylum in the U.S.

There were three deportation flights to Iran between September 2025 and January 2026, with more than 100 Iranian nationals deported. But the administration’s confirmation of the new plans amid the war that began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in late February highlights its resolve in carrying out its hard-line immigration crackdown, which has involved ramping up removals, including to places that critics say could endanger the lives of the returnees.

Homeland Security response

In response to questions Sunday from the Associated Press, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not comment on “prospective removal operations, including flight schedules, passenger manifests, destinations, or individual case details,” nor would the agency confirm future removal operations.

“As promised, the Trump Administration is employing all lawful options to carry out the largest deportation operation in history,” the statement said.

The administration did not specify in the October court records when the deportations would be carried out. But in the last week, roughly a dozen Iranian nationals in immigration detention said they were notified that they were scheduled for an upcoming deportation flight to Pakistan and then to Iran, according to numerous attorneys who have since confirmed those plans with Homeland Security.

Iranian government contacts reported

According to Rahnama, the eight detainees who boarded the flight on Sunday were visited by a senior official with the Iranian Interests Section — an Iranian representative office in the Pakistani Embassy in Washington that handles consular affairs — and were told that the Iranian government would transport them from Pakistan to Iran.

In the litigation brought by the Iranian immigrant advocacy group, at least a dozen Iranian detainees have said they’ve been contacted by Iranian officials who had knowledge of sensitive information on their asylum claims.

U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes, a nominee of President Biden, has not ruled on the claims but ordered the U.S. government to give the court 24-hour notice of any finalized plans to deport Iranians to Iran or to any other country, and five days’ written notice before any such deportation is carried out.

In a court filing Sunday, the defense fund laid out what it had learned about plans for a removal flight Sunday and argued that the administration may have violated the judge’s directive to give advance notice of deportation plans.

Later Sunday, the government filed court documents in the case, but they were sealed and inaccessible to the public.

Group says individuals could face persecution

The Iranian American Legal Defense Fund has called for a halt to the removal flights, saying in a news release that they would “reportedly mark the first deportation of Iranians to Iran since the U.S.-Iran war began.”

The group’s executive director, Yasmine Chubin, said in a statement Sunday that it was difficult to comprehend why the U.S. would forcibly deport Iranians, including asylum seekers, to Iran, amid ongoing military hostilities.

The consequences of removal, Chubin said, “could be irreversible and individuals may face persecution, torture, or death.”

At least one person who had been part of the scuttled flight volunteered to go back to Iran after nearly two years of detention, Rahnama said, out of desperation to leave what he described as inhumane imprisonment. It’s not clear how many other of the deportees may have volunteered to leave.

Riddle writes for the Associated Press. AP reporter Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Va., contributed to this report.