The Trump Justice Department has asked the Supreme Court to decide whether a Nigerian man who says he was forced to cook for armed militants should be denied asylum on the grounds that he fed them.

The Court agreed to hear the DOJ's appeal in the case of Izuchukwu Ozurumba, whose meals for a group known as the Unknown Gunmen were deemed "material support" for terrorism by immigration authorities, according to a Bloomberg Law report. Under federal immigration law, a material support finding disqualifies an applicant from asylum — a restriction Congress broadened after the September 11 attacks, and one that immigration authorities have applied regardless of how little support was provided.

Ozurumba's ordeal began in Nigeria in 2022, when he accepted what he believed to be an ordinary job cooking at a remote camp. He soon discovered that the people running the camp belonged to a militant group with a history of violence against police officers and politicians.

Court records show that he prepared three meals a day for 15 to 17 camp leaders. Armed guards prevented him from leaving, and his employers eventually stopped paying him. He spent about six months at the camp in total, three of them without pay.

He ultimately escaped during a shopping trip, fleeing at a petrol station and hiding in the bush for two days. His ordeal with the group did not end there. Ozurumba said he was threatened, and that men from the group attacked him with sticks and knives after he left a church service. He eventually made his way out of Nigeria and entered the United States in 2023, where he applied for asylum, citing fear of further attacks.

An immigration judge rejected his application in 2024, finding that his cooking for the group amounted to material support for a terrorist organization. The Board of Immigration Appeals upheld the decision, concluding that the law provided no exception for support given under duress.

The dispute reaches beyond one case. Asylum seekers who flee armed groups are often pressed into serving them, and under the government's reading those services carry the same immigration consequences as willing support. In 2023, the U.S. Secretary of State invoked waiver authority to exempt certain applicants whose support for designated groups had been provided under duress.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, giving him a renewed path to asylum. Writing for the majority, Judge Wynn concluded that Ozurumba was "simply a captive laborer" and that his cooking did not in any way contribute to terrorist activity. Treating every meal as terrorist support, Wynn warned, would "collapse the statute into absurdity."

Judge Julius Richardson dissented, arguing that the thousands of meals Ozurumba provided sustained the's leadership and therefore amounted to material support.

The Trump administration appealed, contending that the Fourth Circuit's interpretation was at odds with decisions in other circuits and could produce "serious confusion" in the enforcement of immigration law. The Supreme Court frequently takes cases to settle such divisions among the circuit courts, and its eventual ruling will bind immigration judges and appeals courts nationwide.

In a further twist, Ozurumba was deported to Nigeria in April 2025, months before the appeals court ruled in his favor. That decision overturned his removal order too late to prevent his deportation, but it did not grant him asylum or require his immediate return to the United States.

The Supreme Court will now decide how far the terrorism-related asylum bar extends, including in cases where the person who allegedly provided the support was held against their will. The case will be briefed and argued in the months ahead, and the justices' ruling will set the governing standard for coercion claims under the material support bar — deciding whether Ozurumba, and others in his position, can still pursue asylum.