The U.S. Asylum System in Crisis: Charting a Way Forward
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Highlights
The U.S. asylum system's growing backlog demands administrative reforms and necessary funding, not just enforcement restrictions, to restore timely, fair protection.
- Affirmative asylum applications rose from 28,000 in fiscal year (FY) 2010 to 143,000 in FY 2017, producing a backlog of 320,000 cases, while credible-fear claims climbed from 9,000 to 79,000 over the same period.
- Trump administration restrictions—including largely eliminating gang and domestic violence as asylum grounds and a zero-tolerance prosecutorial policy for all border crossers—are unnecessarily harsh and have already proven unworkable.
- Near-term administrative fixes include routing positive credible-fear findings to the USCIS Asylum Division rather than immigration courts and separating cancellation-of-removal cases from the affirmative caseload.
- Regional cooperation with Mexico and neighboring countries to address displacement causes and strengthen asylum systems is the only reliable long-term path to building resilience.
Each year, the U.S. asylum system offers protection to thousands of persecuted individuals. Yet the system has reached a crisis point, the result of a confluence of factors that have led to a major backlog of cases, with many applicants waiting years for a decision. This slowdown both harms those eligible for protection and invites abuse, with some claims filed to secure the right to remain and work legally in the United States while awaiting long-off adjudication.
Amid rising numbers of asylum claims, the Trump administration has taken a number of actions to narrow access to humanitarian protection in the United States. These include largely eliminating gang and domestic violence as grounds for asylum and introducing a “zero-tolerance” approach to border enforcement that entails prosecuting all first-time border crossers, including adult asylum seekers, for illegal entry.
This report takes a step back to examine the factors that have brought the U.S. asylum system to this crisis point—from regional migration dynamics that are changing the profile of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, to inefficiencies in affirmative and defensive asylum processes. Based on this analysis and lessons learned from the mid-1990s reform of the asylum system, the authors propose common-sense steps that can be implemented now to get the system back on track. This multipronged approach includes measures to help make asylum workflows more strategic and effective, resolve cases in a timely fashion, deter abuses, and strengthen cooperation with neighboring countries to better manage humanitarian flows through the region.
Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. The U.S. Asylum System and Its Prior Reforms
Core Principles of the 1990s Reforms
III. Asylum Pathways and the Surge of Applications
A. Affirmative Asylum Caseload before USCIS
B. Defensive Asylum Caseload before EOIR
C. Recent Caseload Management Actions
D. Other Asylum Policies Introduced by the Trump Administration
IV. The Regional Context: Violence in Central America and Its Impact on the U.S. Asylum System
A. Violence in Home States
B. Internal Displacement
C. Countries of Asylum in the Region
D. Protection Concerns upon Return
E. Regional Responses
V. Recommendations for Revitalizing the Asylum System
A. Restoring Timeliness
B. Mobilizing Regional Cooperation to Address Regional Challenges
VI. Conclusion
About the U.S. Immigration Policy Program
The U.S. Immigration Policy Program provides analysis of U.S. immigration pathways, the impacts of enforcement and other policies, and the characteristics of immigrant populations.
Rethinking U.S. Immigration Policy Initiative
This Initiative is generating a big-picture, evidence-driven vision of the role immigration can and should play in America’s future by providing policy ideas that reflect new realities.
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