Supreme Court will decide whether forced cooking can bar asylum as terrorist support

The justices accepted a narrow immigration-law dispute

The U.S. Supreme Court granted review on October 13 in Blanche v. Ozurumba, No. 25-1343. The Court’s docket identifies Attorney General Todd Blanche as the petitioner and Nigerian citizen Izuchukwu Ozurumba as the respondent. The official question presented asks whether the Immigration and Nationality Act’s “material support” bar reaches support that has a reasonably foreseeable tendency to sustain a terrorist organization, even if the support is not independently capable of advancing terrorist activity. Granting review does not resolve that question or determine that Ozurumba supported terrorism. [1][2][4]

Reuters reported that the Court is expected to hear argument and decide the case by the end of June 2027. No argument date was listed on the docket at the October 13 cutoff. The dispute concerns statutory eligibility for asylum and withholding of removal; the reviewed materials do not present a criminal charge against Ozurumba. [1][4][5]

The record describes captive labor after a deceptive job offer

According to the Fourth Circuit record and Reuters, Ozurumba accepted what he understood to be a cooking job in 2022 and was taken to a remote camp outside Lagos. He later concluded that the camp was operated by people called the Unknown Gunmen and, after seeing movements that coincided with reports of murder and arson, tried to leave. His lawyers said he was forced to remain without pay for about six months and escaped while buying supplies. U.S. immigration officials treated the group as a terrorist organization for this case; the reviewed record describes it as apparently or likely associated with separatists rather than establishing a separate public designation. [3][4]

An immigration judge found that preparing meals met members’ basic needs and therefore counted as material support, and treated duress as legally irrelevant. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed. Reuters reported that Ozurumba was removed to Nigeria in 2025 while his appeal was pending. The reviewed sources do not establish his present location or whether any separate process could return him if he ultimately prevails. [3][4][5]

The appeals court said “material” must impose a real threshold

A divided Fourth Circuit vacated the removal order in September 2025. The majority held that material support must be sufficiently substantial, standing alone, to help an organization accomplish terrorist activity. It said cooking with the group’s own food and supplies gave it nothing usable or readily divertible for violent activity and described Ozurumba as a captive laborer whose work did not publicize or legitimize the group. [3][4]

The Justice Department argues that the Fourth Circuit created a threshold the statute does not contain and that feeding members is no less material than supplying fuel for vehicles. Bloomberg Law reported that the administration says the ruling conflicts with at least three other circuits. Those are litigation positions, not findings about Ozurumba’s intent or the legal standard the Supreme Court will adopt. [2][4][5]

Duress and protection from torture remain separate unresolved issues

The Fourth Circuit did not decide whether the material-support bar contains an implied duress exception because it found the cooking was not material support. It also left Ozurumba’s Convention Against Torture claim unresolved. The Supreme Court’s published question focuses on the meaning of “material support,” so the case may affect people who provided low-level or compelled services without settling every duress or torture-protection issue. [3][2]

How the sources compare