Under the new Biden administration, asylum seekers are seeing greater success rates in securing asylum.
While the percent of immigrants who were denied asylum went up each year during the Trump administration to a high of 71 percent in FY 2020, they fell to 63 percent in FY 2021. Success rates grew from 29 percent to 37 percent under President Biden.
However, due to the pandemic, fewer asylum cases are being decided by immigration judges. This means fewer total asylum seekers actually won their cases despite this improving success rate. During FY 2021 just 23,827 asylum decisions were issued, down from 60,079 decisions during FY 2020. These statistics count all decisions rendered on the merits of asylum seekers’ claims.
Even with the greater odds of success, the number of asylum seekers who were granted asylum during FY 2021 was only 8,349 with an additional 402 granted another type of relief instead of asylum. In sheer numbers, this was only about half the number of asylum seekers who had been granted relief during FY 2020.
You can see the original published report on
Austin Kocher
is an assistant professor and researcher at the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a research institute that uses Freedom of Information Act requests to study the federal government. Key areas of Kocher’s current research at TRAC include federal immigration detention, enforcement, and deportation, the immigration court system, and trends within the federal criminal and civil courts.
“Our new detailed report on asylum cases decided in FY 2021 sheds new light on how the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the Biden administration have impacted the everyday functions of the immigration court system. For instance, we found that the success rate for asylum-seekers in immigration court has gone up since Joe Biden became president, even though the total number of people being granted asylum has actually declined since the Trump administration. We also found when it comes to understanding who gets asylum and why, key factors here include nationality and access to legal representation most important.”
To request an interview with Dr. Kocher, please contact Joshua Grossman, director of media relations, at jmgrossm@syr.edu or 202.227.9250
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