The US Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear a case about Izuchukwu Ozurumba’s asylum eligibility for cooking for the South-East’s separatist militia group, otherwise known as unknown gunmen.
The US Department of Justice is challenging a lower court’s ruling favouring Mr Ozurumba on the ground that cooking for Unknown Gunmen did not qualify as providing “material support” for terrorism under immigration law.
“Providing meals to a terrorist organisation’s members is no less a material form of support than providing gasoline for its vehicles,” the DOJ stated in its appeal before the Supreme Court.
The DOJ argued that if the lower court’s ruling were allowed to stand, it would set a precedent and “substantially increase the burden on the government in excluding aliens with links to terrorism” from asylum.
The Supreme Court will determine if Mr Ozurumba’s cooking for the unknown gunmen violates US immigration law barring and disqualifying foreigners linked to terrorist activities in any way from being granted asylum.
In 2022, Mr Ozurumba allegedly followed a job advert that led him to a remote camp outside Lagos, where he was hired as a cook. He later discovered that he had been hired to cook in a camp run by unknown gunmen, a group linked to Igbo separatists in the South-East.
Mr Ozurumba’s counsel said his client “observed that the young men’s movements from the camp coincided with news reports of murder and arson” and that when he attempted to leave, he was coerced into remaining in the camp and working without pay.
After escaping from the camp, Mr Ozurumba alleged that he faced death threats, forcing him to flee Nigeria to Venezuela, where he eventually entered the US illegally in 2023 and applied for asylum, his lawyer disclosed.
However, an immigration judge under former President Joe Biden’s administration considered unknown gunmen a terrorist organisation, denying Mr Ozurumba’s asylum on the ground that his services to the group provided for its members’ basic human needs and aided their activities.
Last year, Mr Ozurumba was deported to Nigeria before his appeal before the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals was concluded.
The Court of Appeals ruled in favour of Mr Ozurumba in September 2025 that he was a victim of forced labour and that his work as a cook in the unknown gunmen’s camp did not constitute material support for the group.