The United States grants asylum to more immigrants, but there are two problems

Although fiscal year 2022 leads with the number of asylum cases, the new accelerated system of the Government of President Joe Biden has also lowered the grant rates, in addition to the fact that it has not dealt with the backlog of almost two million cases in immigration courts.

In addition to this, immigrants who apply for asylum and have a lawyer are the most likely to obtain that immigration protection.

“Award rates were only 18% for those without representation, but more than two and a half times higher for represented cases,” it says.

The data was disclosed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), which operates out of Syracuse University in New York.

Grant rates averaged 46% versus 36% in fiscal 2021. Currently, fiscal year 2023 is running, which began in October.

The total number of decisions by judges was 51,607 during fiscal year 2022 against the 24,810 protections for fiscal year 2021. Of that number , 23,686 were positive for immigrants in 2022 against the 8,945 registered the previous year.

“Fiscal year 2022 records the highest number of people granted asylum in any year in the history of the Immigration Court,” the report states.

TRAC indicates that immigration judges granted more asylum applications, in addition to the fact that many of these processes were carried out through a “faster” system, due to the initiatives of the Biden Administration, which includes the so-called “dedicated file”.

“In this program, families seeking asylum were granted expedited procedures and placed at the forefront,” it states.

However, this occurred regardless of the backlog of 1.9 million cases accumulated by the immigration courts.

Another problem is that the grant rates have decreased since July 2022.

“This coincides with the extremely rapid increase in accelerated cases,” the report explains. “When cases were closed within three to 18 months during this recent period, award rates fell to 31%.”

who is granted asylum

Although not necessarily representing the largest number of asylum cases, the highest grant rates were for applicants from Eritrea, where 89% were granted asylum.

Applicants from Russia and Cameroon tie for the next highest award rates at 88%.

Immigrants who are least granted that migratory protection are those from Brazil, where only 16% achieved that goal.

“Haitians also have relatively low grant rates; however, these doubled from only 12% during fiscal year 2021 to 24% in fiscal year 2022”, it is acknowledged.

In addition to this, of the people detained, only 15% were granted asylum.

“Those released from detention had the highest asylum-granting rates (54%), and also showed the greatest gains over fiscal year 2021,” the report said.

It stands out that more than three quarters (76%) of the cases rejected by officials of the Office of Citizenship and Immigration Services ( USCIS ) received asylum in a new hearing before the judges.

Asylum seekers must do so at the border when they surrender to immigration agents, but not all cases are accepted for a court hearing, as they depend on a first interview with the authorities.

It should be noted that Title 42 is currently still in operation, which allows the expedited expulsion of immigrants at the border.