Nigerian Man’s Deportation Case Heads to US Supreme Court Over Terrorism Support Law

The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case involving Nigerian national Izuchukwu Ozurumba, whose asylum application was rejected after he said he was forced to cook for members of a separatist group in southern Nigeria.

At the centre of the dispute is whether preparing meals for members of the group amounts to providing “material support” for terrorism under US immigration law.

In an order issued on Tuesday, the court agreed to consider the Trump administration’s bid to overturn a federal appeals court decision that had set aside earlier rulings denying Ozurumba asylum.

The case is expected to be considered during the court’s current term, which commenced on October 5 and will continue until late June.

The decision could affect other asylum seekers, with the implications depending on how the nine-member court — comprising six conservative justices and three liberals — defines “material support.”

Ozurumba said he was compelled to cook at a separatist group’s camp in southern Nigeria for about six months from 2022. He later escaped to Venezuela before illegally crossing the US-Mexico border in the summer of 2023.

His asylum application was rejected in 2024 by a US immigration judge, who ordered his deportation under a provision of US immigration law that prohibits foreign nationals who provide “material support” to terrorist organisations from being granted asylum. The ruling was later upheld on appeal.

Ozurumba’s lawyers said he was deported to Nigeria in April 2025. However, a federal appeals court subsequently overturned the previous decisions and returned the matter to the immigration court for another review.

The appeals court argued that cooking for the organisation did not necessarily mean Ozurumba provided resources that could be used directly for terrorist activities.

“Cooking meals using food and supplies purchased by the organization may have ‘sustained’ the organization in the broadest possible sense…but provided nothing that the organization could use or readily divert to plan or carry out its terrorist activities,” the court wrote.

It further stated: “As far as the record shows, Ozurumba was simply a captive laborer whose work had nothing to do with those activities.”

The Trump administration, which has pursued a sweeping deportation campaign against undocumented immigrants, is asking the Supreme Court to reverse the appeals court’s decision.

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