The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide if President Donald Trump may categorically ban migrants arriving at the southern border from applying for asylum, setting up arguments on another divisive policy the White House sees as critical to its anti-immigration agenda.

The appeal will almost certainly be heard early next year and decided before July.

It adds another case to a Supreme Court term that is already heavy on Trump’s hardline immigration policies, including one on the administration’s removal of migrants to countries they have no connection with and the push to direct certain migrants to mandatory detention.

Trump signed the proclamation on his first day back in office, suspending entry for migrants “engaged in the invasion across the southern border.” The document specifically restricted migrants from invoking asylum protections included in federal law “until I issue a finding that the invasion at the southern border has ceased.”

The president has argued that people crossing the border illegally claim asylum as a way to stall their deportation because it can take years to adjudicate an asylum claim, and an applicant can be released into the US while that process plays out.

But the Immigration and Nationality Act, a law enacted by Congress, specifically allows migrants to claim asylum, even as it leaves the decision about whether to grant safe harbor up to administration officials. Thirteen individuals and three immigrant rights groups challenged the Trump policy last year.

A federal appeals court in April upheld a district court decision that found the administration’s effort violated the INA. But the court stayed its decision, allowing the Trump administration to continue the policy while it appealed.

“Barring foreign individuals who are physically present in the United States from applying for asylum and, if they make the statutory showing that they are eligible, from being considered to receive it cannot be squared with the statute,” wrote US Circuit Judge Michelle Childs, who was named to the court by former President Joe Biden.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer, the administration’s top appellate lawyer, described the asylum measures as a “cornerstone” policy that has been its “most effective” change in “resolving a border crisis.”

The appeal also quoted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as saying that “one of the ‘key magnets’ for that flood of aliens was ‘asylum.’”