Creator: Joe Ravi Just when you think the radical open-border lobby and activist judges have pushed the legal system to its absolute limit...
Just when you think the radical open-border lobby and activist judges have pushed the legal system to its absolute limit, the United States Supreme Court is now being forced to step in to answer a question that should take precisely two seconds to answer:
Should a man who cooked thousands of meals to sustain members of an armed terrorist organization be granted legal asylum inside the United States?
The case, Blanche v. Ozurumba, involves Izuchukwu Ozurumba, who entered the United States illegally in July 2023 after spending roughly six months in 2022 as a cook for a group known as the “Unknown Gunmen.”
Court records show he prepared three meals a day for 15 to 17 of the group’s leaders at a remote camp outside Lagos, potentially thousands of meals over the period. U.S. officials determined the Unknown Gunmen qualify as a Tier III terrorist organization, The Center Square reported.
An immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals found that this constituted “material support” for terrorism under the Immigration and Nationality Act, rendering him ineligible for asylum. He was later removed to Nigeria.
Ozurumba claims “he was lured” by a job tip, discovered the true nature of the camp, and was forced to continue working (including unpaid for part of the time) under threat before escaping during a grocery run and eventually fleeing to Venezuela and then the U.S. The Board of Immigration Appeals has held that the statute contains no duress exception for providing support to terrorist groups.
A divided panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed in September 2025. Judge Andrew Wynn (an Obama appointee) ruled that Ozurumba’s cooking, using food and supplies provided by the group itself, was not “material” because it did not provide anything the organization could “use or readily divert to plan or carry out its terrorist activities.” The majority described him as a “captive laborer.”
In dissent, Judge Julius Richardson argued that feeding the leaders of a terrorist organization for months is quantitatively and functionally material support, an army marches on its stomach, and the meals freed up resources for the group’s activities.
The Trump administration, through Attorney General Todd Blanche and Solicitor General D. John Sauer, petitioned the Supreme Court.
The government argues the Fourth Circuit’s ruling guts the material-support bar, conflicts with other circuits, and would “substantially increase the burden on the government in excluding aliens with links to terrorism.”
As the Justice Department put it, “Providing meals to a terrorist organization’s members is no less a material form of support than providing gasoline for its vehicles.” The law “does not distinguish between guns and butter.”
The Supreme Court granted certiorari on Tuesday. Arguments are expected later in the term, with a decision by the end of June 2027.
The question presented is whether “material support” under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(3)(B)(iv)(VI) requires that the support advance the organization’s actual commission of terrorism.
The Department of Justice warned the Supreme Court that if the Fourth Circuit’s ridiculous precedent is allowed to stand, it will “substantially increase the burden on the government in excluding aliens with links to terrorism”.
If preparing food for terrorists doesn’t count as material support, what’s next? Washing the blood off their uniforms? Driving the getaway vans? Managing their payroll?
No comments