Tamer Wassily left Egypt and arrived in the United States in 1993. In 2000 he was granted asylum, on his claim that he had been persecuted at home as a Coptic Christian. Years later he was convicted of stalking and child endangerment. Byron Velasquez Arreaga came in 1995, was also granted asylum, and later picked up multiple convictions for driving while intoxicated.
Both men lost their asylum. In each case the Department of Homeland Security moved to terminate it, and an immigration judge agreed, finding the crimes “particularly serious.” Then the two judges parted ways. Wassily’s judge held that he could still apply for a green card, because the statute had no “explicit requirement” of current asylum status. Velasquez Arreaga’s judge reached the opposite answer and ordered him removed to Guatemala.
The Board of Immigration Appeals took the stricter view in both appeals, relying on its own precedent, Matter of T-C-A-. A divided panel of the 2nd Circuit agreed, lining up with most other circuits. Judge Beth Robinson dissented. In her reading, “any” noncitizen who was previously granted asylum can apply, and Congress left the word “status” out on purpose.
What the law says
The trouble traces back to the Refugee Act of 1980. For refugees processed abroad, it allowed a green card only if their “admission has not been terminated.” For people who won asylum from inside the country, the adjustment provision, 8 U.S.C. § 1159(b), says nothing about termination. It says only that an official “may” grant a green card to “any alien granted asylum” who meets the admissibility rules. Whether that phrase covers anyone who was ever granted asylum, or only someone who holds it today, is the question.
The Supreme Court took up the case in June and will decide it in its coming term. Wassily and Velasquez Arreaga say “granted” is a past-tense verb and that Congress knew how to write a status requirement when it wanted one. They also point to Section 1159(c), which allows a waiver of other admissibility requirements, and call it “strange” to read the law as stripping the attorney general of discretion once status ends. Lenity, they add, favors the noncitizen, a rule they say matters more since the Court’s 2024 decision in Loper Bright v. Raimondo ended Chevron deference.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer agrees the justices should hear the case but says the 2nd Circuit got it right. Only the 2nd, 4th and 5th Circuits have looked at the issue so far. The government reads a time-limited exception in the Immigration Act of 1990 as proof that Congress spared only a small group of terminated asylees. It says lenity does not apply, and argues that “the decision to terminate is itself discretionary.”
Who else is affected
Terminations used to be uncommon. Policy changes under the Trump administration have exposed far more people to them. The outcome could touch millions of people with asylum cases pending in immigration courts and asylum offices, along with those granted asylum in recent years.
In December 2025, Homeland Security said it would “comprehensively re-review” asylum approvals from “high-risk” countries going back to 2021, and it could terminate status when the review ends. A federal district court vacated that policy in June 2026. The government is challenging the ruling.
Sources
Sources
- Understanding the court’s next major case on asylum seekers …
- DHS Supreme Court Rulings Expand Asylum, TPS Power
